beginnings

My artwork from the recent years has been very universal, deliberately so. I knew the time had come to get more personal, reveal my soul a bit more. When 'Beginnings' got chosen as the exhibition title by group R, my initial feeling was that it would point to exploring my roots, as I'm far away from my native country and never explored it in my art. But I didn't even get home from the meeting, before I realised I was in the middle of living a significant 'beginning'. I was six months down the track from a separation - hence the silence here on the blog! - getting used to just being me, taking turns looking after our children, being back in paid work. I had no need to look any further for inspiration did I...

I had an instant vision of expressing the various emotions I've been going through as well as the different roles I juggle between through a collection of garments. I saw some of them them being quite unwearable as the inside and outside would be just as expressive. Private vs public. Feelings inside vs the image you see on the surface. Putting on social masks? Sometimes the inside would be way too prickly or painful to actually wear ON your body!