 |
| Corner of Sallys studio |
Statement:
______________________________________________________________________
Surface often provides the dominant metaphor in the work of Sally Bourke and more recently this has turned towards thinking about the nature of fabric and its relationship to skin with its capacity to project an image of self and to protect at one and the same time. Much of her previous work has been arrived at by a process that in her words she refers to as “deconstructing the painting” where she layers paint only to scrape back to reveal previous layers creating atmosphere, ambiguity and to reveal layers beneath the skin.
However she is now at the point of recontextualising her skin related works by making new constructions from previously owned fabrics which encode within the works aspects of the old owner, memory and a sense of sentimentality. These works have become almost three dimensional, protective in that they enclose spaces and offering the viewer a sense of fragility and transience.
Always her concerns are about the abstract nature of the resolved work, painting about the “here and now” with a practice well grounded in experimentation.
Pidgeon Coop- You Tube interview with Sally Bourke at the wool store Newcastle studios.
