Burning Memories- Jennine Farrugia 2013.
Artist Statement.
My Body of Work: Burning Memories.
I am concerned with abstracting extracts of memories as recalled from my childhood. These memories, though hazy and indistinct are inspired by nine years spent travelling Australia in a Kombi van, as a child. The 43 different schools I attended during this time are indicative of the variance to the landscapes I encountered. These landscapes are now an amalgamation of fleeting memories and past visions of burning lands, burnt trees, unfamiliar and unplaced, which inform the premise of my work ‘Burning Memories’. For me, no single landscape can portray these memories in a time when I was virtually homeless and had no sense of a home base. My awareness of the ‘burning’ of most of those lands in my memory has since changed in context as a result of an adult understanding of sugar cane burning. However, using mixed media, I attempt to translate the memories of my childhood and the foreign landscapes, complete with the abstraction of extraction that forms as a result of shifting context of roads travelled: of travel, the vastness of the bush, smoke, flames, embers and even snow.
No Matter how far we travel the memories will follow – unknown.
My Body of Work: Burning Memories.
I am concerned with abstracting extracts of memories as recalled from my childhood. These memories, though hazy and indistinct are inspired by nine years spent travelling Australia in a Kombi van, as a child. The 43 different schools I attended during this time are indicative of the variance to the landscapes I encountered. These landscapes are now an amalgamation of fleeting memories and past visions of burning lands, burnt trees, unfamiliar and unplaced, which inform the premise of my work ‘Burning Memories’. For me, no single landscape can portray these memories in a time when I was virtually homeless and had no sense of a home base. My awareness of the ‘burning’ of most of those lands in my memory has since changed in context as a result of an adult understanding of sugar cane burning. However, using mixed media, I attempt to translate the memories of my childhood and the foreign landscapes, complete with the abstraction of extraction that forms as a result of shifting context of roads travelled: of travel, the vastness of the bush, smoke, flames, embers and even snow.
No Matter how far we travel the memories will follow – unknown.