Finland, 2016
I was selected to be an artist in residence Arteles Art Residency in Hameenkyro, Finland for three weeks in Spring, 2016. I was a part of a program that saw twelve multi-disciplinary artists from many different locations come together to focus on creating new bodies of work.
The residency finished with an open studio-style exhibition on each participants project.
Throughout the month I filled the studio with drawings, large paintings of the view out the cabin window across the lake and developed rolls of film I had taken from a fortnight in Helsinki prior to the residency begining.
I collected receipts, boarding passes, shopping lists, small tapestries, pages from my moleskin, souvenirs from the local flea market and covered my studio walls - my project lay in documenting each and everyday via painting and drawing, mainly. But each and every item to do with the day that I put up on the studio wall was of equal interest to me. This was my first international art residency, and I found it to sustain my practise for years - I travelled to Berlin for a few weeks afterwards to experience Germany in deep Summer, I ended up going back to Berlin for two subsequent Summers.
Upon returning to Melbourne, I drew a series of detailed monochrome scenes with pencil, some from photos and some from memory, to form a self-published artist book title ‘A Single Tear’.
I launched via a pop-up shopfront in Northcote, Victoria.