She brought them with her

Created for Without Frontiers | Lunetta a Colori 2024

Description (artist statement): It is my goal with murals to convey highly personal, private, intimate, and sensitive narratives as very large, very public totems, making visible topics that aren’t usually shared with strangers on the street. As with many of my works, my mural for Without Frontiers is inspired by the role of women in history, both in my life and in art history.

This mural concept formed during my recent residency at Arquetopia, Puebla, Mexico. With my 30th birthday looming I worked hard to pack-up my life in Adelaide (my home town) and travel to a new, distant, challenging, but fruitful and rigorous learning environment. I became interested in the topic of ‘home’ in relation to the ‘domestic woman’. This painting is directly informed by residency readings based on the role of women in the home throughout history, and shifts toward breaking this mould as new generations live alone, travel, expand their careers, no longer restricted to the once sole purposes of motherhood and wifely duties. I’m very lucky to be a woman that is (mostly independently) supported in living the life I do, made possible only by the women who created me and provided me with this platform to flourish from. Elements of this mural were derived from both past and present, also tying into my research on time, ‘place’ and ‘space’ as playgrounds for symbiotically active narratives. Overall, this is a gratuitous (yet somewhat existential) reflection on aging, family lineage, life purpose, privilege, belonging and the journey of home and self. 

Included this mural is, the kitchen window setting/view from Arquetopia in Puebla, Mexico (aka domestic space within an ‘exotic’ safe haven), a photo of my mother from her youth floating above my heart space, a fruit basket from my past Adelaide cottage rental, a dying flower I picked the day before I left for my travels, traditional tiles and textiles that originated from the Spanish conquest but have also become ‘Mexican’, my outfit comprised of Aussie and Mexican pieces inspired by the domestic wear of Vermeers painted female subjects, and broccolini, a deeply personal symbol of comfort and support to me.