Tell us about your creative process, what drives your practice?

I’m fascinated by exploring the ways through which the COVID19 pandemic has changed the way we think about freedom of movement and the resulting nostalgia we feel for memories, places, and experiences. After creating my collection entitled are you going to keep that? (2020), in which I created a suite of drawings of travel ephemera accumulated in a pre COVID19 world, I’ve been interested in building on this theme. I’m in a very exploratory phase at the moment working across not only printmaking and drawing but lots of other creative endeavours such as jewellery, collage, and fibre arts.

Your practice operates in both fine art and design realms. Do you find the two inform each other and the imagery you use, or are they quite disparate?

Having studied both a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Bachelor of Design at ANU, I find the two realms are closely linked in the way I go about my creative practice. I view much of my work in a very graphic sense, as if I’m seeing things in the way you would plan the layers of a screen print. One of my favourite aspects of printmaking is that once I have created an image to print, I can then print many more of the same image, much in the same way I might repeat elements of my design work.

What drew you to DIY printmaking processes, like hand cut screen printing stencils, for your Flights (2020/21) body of work?

I initially started working with hand cut stencils for my screen printing purely out of necessity. Back in March 2020 I was taking an introductory screen printing course at uni, and when we all had to start working remotely, due to the onset of the pandemic, I had to come up with some creative ways to create work at home. I’m fortunate enough to have space at home where I was able to set up a mini screen printing studio where I used matchboxes stuck to a bench in order to properly register my prints. It was a bit of a learning curve but it means I am now equipped with the knowledge of how to create good hand cut stencils.

I really fell in love with screen printing during 2020 so I’m glad that I was able to bridge the gap between working in a studio and working at home.

Are there any female printmakers | artists that influence you?

Having installed the Know My Name exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, I was able to see the work of some incredible women artists up close. I find eX de Medici’s work and Lindy Lee’s flung bronze works really scratch the itch in my brain as they are so graphic and visually interesting with each element of the work reflecting light and casting shadow differently.

Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?

Having been awarded a studio residency at Megalo Print Studio & Gallery, when I graduated in 2020, I’m really looking forward to getting back into the studio to print. I’m currently creating a suite of large coloured halftone screen prints (something I’ve been unable to do in the home studio) using the 35mm photographs I took during my international exchange program in 2019/20. I’m also working on a data visualisation project using information from the last year of the pandemic to create generative drawings using coding and an axidraw plotter.

I’ve got a solo show coming up at Altenburg & Co in Braidwood alongside my continued work at the National Gallery of Australia whilst being immersed in the art world.