Two Books And A Show In Benalla

It's been way too long between blog posts. I have a reasonable excuse, a 16 month old baby who is swiftly becoming a mini-man and a 22 week old baby girl in my tummy. There's been huge changes in my life and I'm finally feeling like emerging out of the cave of new Mummy hibernation. I must admit that it hasn't come easy. I didn't immediately feel like 'wow this is amazing'. It's taken ages to get to a place where I'm truly enjoying it and not through any fault of my gorgeous little boy. He's totally adorable. It was just really hard. Anyway, I'm there now though and glad I made it through. It's been a very transitional time in my life as well as foundational. Starting a family at almost forty years old has been a shock to the system after being careless and carefree for much of that time. It's funny how the thing we long for the most can sometimes be the most difficult to achieve.

So onto the news. There's been much I've failed to post to this blog. Forgive me. I've recently had two solo shows, the first titled 'I Am' at Shepparton Art Museum and the last titled 'Chrysalis' at Maroondah Art Gallery. Both shows exhibited similar work and I was pleased to have the opportunity to have work removed from my studio (garage) and put on display. In particular, the thirty channel video I made for the Sydney Biennale 'We All Need Forgiveness'. It was useless having thirty TV's in my garage, a burglar's dream and it took up way too much space.

They've both finished now but 'We All Need Forgiveness' is currently showing at the Benalla Art Gallery. It's on until the 9th August and I will be there on the 20th July for an artist talk. So please join me. Full details are here.

Even though I've been adjusting to being a twenty-four hour on-call slave (Mummy), I've also been busy working and writing. Firstly, I was commissioned by the NGV to create a one off edition of twenty artist books for the inaugural NGV Art Book Fair. The fair was a huge success and very cool (not in any way due to my spit up covered presence). However, there are still copies of my book, alongside some of the other commissioned artists, for purchase at the NGV Design store, in house and online. You can check out all the books here or pop in to see them for yourself.

Speaking of books, I was invited by the Racial Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, to contribute to his new book 'I'm Not Racist But... Forty Years Of The Racial Discrimination Act'. I've contributed an essay alongside Benjamin Law, Alice Pung, Christos Tsiolkas and Maxine Beneba Clarke. I might post my contribution soon, in the meantime, you can purchase the book here. I'd love to hear what you think about it. It's an important book and so personal for me, being that I took Andrew Bolt and the Herald Sun to Federal Court and won under the RDA.

Lastly, I'm spending the next few months making all new work for a couple of shows coming up towards the end of the year. I'm currently the PLANT artist in residence at the Werribee Treatment Plant (Poo Farm) and loving it. The site is larger than Phillip Island and so lush and fertile. I'm going in when I can and shooting the most amazing landscapes. These will be shown at Wyndham Art Gallery (where I currently have a piece in a group show called 'War') in November. I'm also due to give birth in November. So until next time, stay busy!