The Largest Sheep, The Luckiest Duck

This is an image, Gaze of the Masked Philosopher, made by Katthy Cavaliere in Goulburn in 2004 and now held in the collection of Goulburn Regional Art Gallery. She climbed inside the head of Goulburn’s Big Merino to see what it sees; wool storage facilities where fine-grade merino is stored before being shipped out to Italy, the country she migrated from with her parents in 1976 at the age of 4.

I was conscious of Cavalieres work at the time this image was made. In 2004 I was researching an MFA, making performances for a video camera and trying to make some sense of my existence by expressing my autobiography through the use of found objects, songs and texts. Trying to progress in a career where I was feeling my work did not have a comfortable home. Cavaliere strikes me as an artist who was also using the things/detritus around them to make sense of her life, before it was ended prematurely by ovarian cancer in 2012.

Come 2019 and I was surprised and thrilled to have been selected as a fellow (alongside Frances Barret and Giselle Stanborough) for Suspended Moment: The Katthy Cavaliere Fellowship, an opportunity made possible by her very generous bequest. The money funds me to develop and show new work at MONA in 2020.

If you’re in the arts in Australia you probably already know this, but despite being an avid social media user, I haven’t made any announcement about this myself yet, somewhat overcome by the hugeness of it all. But I like to keep records. So forgive me for tooting my horn, won’t you? I’ve been humbled by the tsunami of  warm congratulations I’ve recieved since it was announced. I promise you I’m not trying to stir up more. This is just a recording.

Since the PhD I had been feeling very conflicted about how to continue in my practice, so this opportunity is truly a lifeline for my work and, quite frankly, the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me professionally. It’s allowing me to realise a work that will coincide with my 50^th birthday and that I have been hoping I could make (at some kind of scale) for quite some time.

Crone will be my adoption of the classic folkloric character in aspirational representation of the older woman I hope I am becoming.  I’m hoping she’ll be fearsome, wise, resilient and unruly. It’ll comprise video and animation, hand-painted photographic prints and a walking action, but I’m leaving space for more elements to drift up as I go. I’m currently reconfiguring my studio around this project, plotting tracks down the mountain with an amazing guide and working with a dramaturg, a costumier and a hypnotherapist. I’m loving every moment I get spend working on it, but two studio days a week across a year goes very quickly so I’m also trying not to over-reach. It’s a challenge to think big but not over-reach don’t you think?

I am immensely grateful to Katthy, her estate and MONA for this incredible opportunity and I can’t wait to see how this turns out.