Curtain (2012)
When I started this project I was thinking about the division of a space, a boarder, which created some form of separation. The curtain marks a threshold; a liminal point between one space and another. I wanted the division of this space to be marked by something permeable. It seemed important to me that the curtain be a point of celebration, an open invitation to cross back and forth across a boarder. It had to allow the body to be visible as it moved between the folds.
I worked with my mum to produce this artwork. I had previously collaborated with her on other art projects (she once knitted the patterns from my paintings into blankets so I could use them on cold nights). I wanted her to decide on the colour relationships for the curtain. I encouraged her to recall the beautiful colours in the saris she would sometimes wear in India and to draw on these remembered experiences when combining colours for the curtain. The result is a beautiful abstraction; a ‘painting’ which floats lightly, recalling the spaces and colours of our remembered India. Allowing ‘us’ to move back and forth, between now and then.
Curtain (2012), [silk; dimensions variable], photographic documentation – installed in a domestic setting, Fryerstown, Victoria.