During an artist residency at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) I developed Studio Office. This project employed the space provided by PICA as an artists office, allowing me to look at the administrative side of my practice, both pragmatically and conceptually.
Daily exercise presents a series of sculptural experiments and portraits along side a functioning desk and filing system, each an element of the studio routine. The series of small self-portraits, constructed by the daily application and removal of paint on A4 board, reference a process of learning and the development of personal ideas and techniques through doing and repetition. Often beginning as conventional representations, these paintings blur, become slippery and are somewhat in between. The self-portraits were developed whilst undertaking research with the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art (Housed at the University of Western Australia), which includes a substantial proportion of women’s self portraiture.
The same process of daily 'doing' is continued in the presentation of a desk, papers and the refuse of continual administrative duties. The answering of emails, writing of proposals, filing and updating websites is practiced daily and born of the same expression, indeed representing a parallel learning process.