Veil, 2015

This painting is part of a body of work which began in the Czech Republic while visiting my mother’s homeland. Immersed in its beauty and history full of dark passages I developed a further interest in the notion of self. How the individual is constructed, threaded together by divergent strands of culture combined with the time and place it exists. Gentle strands and crude stitches forming patterns of conditioning imposed by external and internal influences. Shaped by our simple all-consuming need for survival and our equally strong desire for comfort.

Back home in Australia I became intrigued by decorative objects such as lace hankies, doilies, and veils. How these inanimate objects suggest certain behaviours. Delicate objects woven carefully over time. So pretty and contrived in their simple, symmetrical patterns yet dictating so much. – Mel Dare

Exhibited in PCWK: 7EAVEN at Nyisztor Gallery 28 September – 18 October 2015.