“I think art and thinking are ways of tuning rather than imposing your concept or getting something to fit. It’s like listening, like attunement. Something is already there and your task is to tune to it.”
~ Timothy Morton
In early 2019 I was not long out of graduating from my Master in Fine Art from the National Art School. At the time I was starting to develop new work. One of the things occupying my thinking was: where do ideas begin.
Danish artist Olafur Eliasson describes this place as an ‘intuitive space’. A space just before we have language for an idea. A gut feeling or physical sensation where we have a feeling. A feeling we are almost conscious of but have not yet given structure.
In this interview Eliasson explains the space from which ideas grow –
Eliasson speaks of the explorative space that opens new possibilities but says it’s a place where you need to risk being honest.
For me, usually, when I’m creating work, I’m working in private. It’s to give myself the ambiguity of not knowing where I am. To be vulnerable and without a skin. To be playful and experimental. To accept failure and to process.
During 2019, as part of my Artist-in-Residence program with Waverley Studios, I was offered the opportunity of creating new work for the Bondi Pavilion Gallery.
At the time Oliver Wagner was a fellow artist in residence with Waverley. Together we set out to explore what it would mean to have the normally private practice of creating work made public.
Our week in the Gallery was spent experimenting and developing an installation piece in front of and with the public.
The Pavilion Gallery at Bondi Beach made for a great setting to try this out.
