Apaato Together

Exhibition statement: The return to a “real” job in the city had me fascinated. 

The lockdowns of the pandemic were a raw memory and work-from-home still gave the CBD an eerie air of abandonment. This led me to recall dystopian futures from sci-fi movies and Japanese anime. 

And this is what originally inspired me to put together this proposal for Gaffa. A collection solely about cities: their suffocating claustrophobia versus the impressive scale and vibrancy; with the gallery being an ideal venue of sympathetic eyes and ears. 

However, my return to the ‘burbs have revived my original artistic interest in cottages and green spaces. I love the old houses and lament every time I see one being knocked down for new developments. 

But I have also returned with a new appreciation of cities and their increasing necessity for an ever-expanding human existence – we’re going to need to fit at least another 2 billion of us somewhere! I’ve realised that we will need to have higher density housing to prevent us from encroaching further upon old-growth forests, vital food producing lands, and building upon precarious locations that will inevitably require us to further destroy the natural environment.

So, my approach is now a more holistic one. I wish to represent all of a city’s urban, environmental footprint rather than just the skyscrapers, and demonstrate how the inclusion of the natural world benefits us all. 

I like to imagine my work as an ecosystem: how each layer of art and craft is important to the overall integrity of the piece. Like our environment, all of it is what makes it great and complete. If you start to remove elements here and there, like species from the food chain or plants that prevent land erosion, you will start to unravel the whole thing; the damage becoming more devastating and irreversible. 

Ultimately, my hope is to get people to care about all of our beautiful, vital planet, and not just the cute, pretty bits. ‍

Artist statement:

I am an emerging Sydney-based artist who is inspired by my immediate, urban surrounds; documenting where man meets nature within this setting. My work pairs graphic imagery with craft: primarily painting and drawing with the likes of embroidery and weaving. ‍

I’m influenced by happy memories of growing up in the 80s and 90s with a family of makers in the Illawarra, along with the beginnings of contemporary pop culture, and since living and working in cosmopolitan Sydney. This is combined with a lifetime of creative tangents that have included bookbinding, calligraphy, and photography, amongst many, many other pursuits. 

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