Previous AA2A Artist

Julia Swarbrick

Year:
2010-11
Project summary:

While my work is wide ranging I find myself returning to the universal theme of decay and renewal.

 

It is an expression of my own fixation with mortality, not just my own but of people, plants and even everyday objects. My early paintings such as the semi abstract ‘Life and Death’ explores this. In my childhood I performed elaborate funerals for birds, mice and cuddly toys. Perhaps less conventionally I also performed resurrection by digging up little ted (though not the dead animals) after a couple of days underground in a shoebox coffin. Clearly not pinned to one tradition, despite my catholic upbringing, I also mummified insects and kept my collection in a bottom drawer. As a child these rituals were a comfort of my own creation.These apparently macabre,  Wednesday Adams type behaviour shows how the creation of ritual assists with the process of life. The making of art represents a similar ritual.

 

 My representations for this theme currently include images dead birds, hollow trees and winter landscapes; drawings, paintings and etchings of flowers in the process of decay, explorations of exploring stagnant ponds and funghi. Associations with death but essential to new growth and all possessing a certain beauty. I attempt to capture some of the beauty of that which is clearly transient.

While my work is wide ranging I find myself returning to the universal theme of decay and renewal.

 

It is an expression of my own fixation with mortality, not just my own but of people, plants and even everyday objects. My early paintings such as the semi abstract ‘Life and Death’ explores this. In my childhood I performed elaborate funerals for birds, mice and cuddly toys. Perhaps less conventionally I also performed resurrection by digging up little ted (though not the dead animals) after a couple of days underground in a shoebox coffin. Clearly not pinned to one tradition, despite my catholic upbringing, I also mummified insects and kept my collection in a bottom drawer. As a child these rituals were a comfort of my own creation.These apparently macabre,  Wednesday Adams type behaviour shows how the creation of ritual assists with the process of life. The making of art represents a similar ritual.

 

 My representations for this theme currently include images dead birds, hollow trees and winter landscapes; drawings, paintings and etchings of flowers in the process of decay, explorations of exploring stagnant ponds and funghi. Associations with death but essential to new growth and all possessing a certain beauty. I attempt to capture some of the beauty of that which is clearly transient.

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