MFA

The MFA program deepened my understanding and laid the conceptual groundwork for future possibilities. It took my existing practice beyond the wall, developed a new body of work, and identified a basis from which process and making originated.

Derived from the environment in which I live, from history, and from belonging, this new body of work celebrates colour, Formalism, and spatial practice. Much of it is made of detritus and the found. This installation engages sense, body, and thought, hoping to challenge what we think of as art.

This MFA project reveals a rich interplay between personal narrative, materiality, and creative methodology, where the act of making art became a conduit for exploring life experiences and significant moments. Through the work and writing I examined how sublimation can transform some deeply personal experiences and desires into a practice that engages with colour, form, function, banality and the mundane.

“Is this you job” is an investigation into materiality and Formalism, through the development of provisional painting, and installation practice. The project utilises the simplicity of form and colour, to develop new work, underpinned by a desire to leave and little mark as possible on the environment.

The juxtaposition of found materials, painted canvases, and minimalist forms, interrogates the value and function of mundane things and materials and reassigns their purpose as art. This process is both intuitive and reflexive, echoing theories like Jane Bennett’s “thing power,” which suggests that objects carry intrinsic value and emotional weight. By privileging feeling over theory or sense over thought, the work embraced an organic, cathartic approach that reflects lived experiences.

Tantalisingly close to yet also so far perfection, the work in “Is this your job” is an undressing of form and function; it speaks to the discomfort felt when experiencing rubbish or detritus and the elevation of objects from the gutter to the gallery. With the oxymoron as a foundational concept, this work leans on the duality between the gutter and the gallery, rubbish and art, Form and Material, and real and felt.

Utilising the grid as a structure that binds the work, the final installation focuses on dualities of rural and urban life, like the binary concepts of permanence and decay, value and worth, humour and the serious nature of art. The wall grid functions as a formal device, anchoring the chaotic interplay of marks, stains, and collected materials. This grid, alongside the minimalist interventions, created tension and balance, reflecting both personal and universal realities.

The paintings in the project reveal a tension between control and spontaneity, drawing from the artist’s surroundings and memories while focusing an abstraction. Formal and recognisable elements like nets, boxes, and patterns reference both the natural and built environments.

Below is a selection of works created druing the MFA program

Is this you job

Graduate installation for Master of Fine Art RMIT 2024

Grad Show installation view of “Is this your job”
2024
Paintings on canvas, suspended from commercial shelving brackets, timber, wing nuts, acrylic painting on linen on board, commercial rubber excercise band, rock, antique breadboard, steel commercial shelf bracket, pegboard, plinth, paper rocks, tape, found ball, log, acrylic painting on cardboard, MDF, wire grid, found plastic

Suspended Dialogue
Commercial rubber excercise band, rock, antique breadboard, steel commercial shelf bracket
2024

Streets Body Stay

Installation View
Actylic painting on denim, commercial shelf brackets, plinth, painters tape, sticknotes, ochre, log, cardboard, diagional painted plinth, rocks, cardboard tube, wall drawing
2024

Installation View
Actylic painting on denim, acrylic painting on canvas, staples, stool, rocks, commercial rubber excercise band, rock, antique breadboard, steel commercial shelf bracket
2024

Lessons in how to hang a painting

Acrylic painting on canvas, wood, wingnuts, rubber engine belts, pegboard, bailing twine, plinth, paper rocks, tape, found ball, paint.
2024

Picture of nothing 2024
Instalation view
Bubble Wrap, foam instulation panel, down, pencil holder

Sorting X & O

Chalk and pencil wall drawing, acrylic painting on table cloth, lime stone, wood, tape, found materials including painting, cardboard tube, table, stool
2023

Painting on recycled Perspex,

50cm x 90cm
detail
2022

Painting on recycled Perspex,
90 cm x 50cm
2022

Painting on linen and board
30 cm x 30cm
2022

Painting on linen and board
30 cm x 30cm
2022