The series of small works titled One just like it were created as part of my 2011 exhibition Two Inches off the Ground. The works cheekily query nostalgia and how this sensation can be triggered by familiar patterns. Made out of bedsheets and painted with acrylic these small works borrow their title from the words people often use when viewing patterns taken from domestic spaces they have known. Ahhhh, they say, I’m sure we had One just like it. Each piece is pocket sized, intimate peeks at a material that would have once rubbed up against a dreaming body, or two. The small format allowed the works to be easily transported, and painted in different locations, with little mess or planning. This was important at the time as many of the pieces were painted beside hospital beds, while my lover was undergoing treatment for cancer. I began one hundred of these tiny pieces with the intention of installing them in a double bed sheet sized space on the wall. I finished only ten. The exhibition wasn’t long after his death and I was stuck in a perfection loop, painting those ten over and over again. The rest got packed away in a box and hidden with the other unfinished things, in the studio. I no longer plan to finish them all. Some are close; some just need a way to hang on the wall. I'm happy for some of them to follow me in their unfinished-ness forever, reminding me of my human-ness. For they are wonderful remnants of human-ness, tiny rose covered fragments of intimacy. Preserved for all time on the very fabric that catches the slipperiness of two, whilst also gently shielding our sleeping bodies. This one, I think, is ready for more. One.1 Acrylic on bedsheets: 18cm x 9cm: $80 + postage Enquiries to [email protected]
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December 2014
karen gollandStudio Keeping: A small project to keep a big space. Funds raised through this initiative will go directly to keeping the third floor of Tremain Mill as a studio space while Karen works through the estate of deceased artist Steve Kirby. This project will culminate in a very special art making experience at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2016. |