Having never visited Kyneton before this residency, I was seeing it for the first time. I found that I was pulling a lot from the physical environment around me and exploring it within the paintings. I was in the process of departing from my usual source imagery of film photography for content. It was refreshing to immerse myself in the town by going for daily walks and wanders to build a narrative within the paintings. During my residency, the announcement of Covid19 entering Australia/Melbourne was aired and I found myself in the Kyneton studio looking through archives of old photos from trips I made overseas. Some of these images made their way into the paintings here. I was no longer taking walks in Kyneton with freedom and ease, something was now in the air - fear and potential deadly germs.

Elynor Smithwick was born in 1991 in Albury, New South Wales. She moved to Melbourne in 2014 beginning her studies in Visual Art. Elynor completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2019 at the Victorian College of the Arts as well as certificates III and IV in Visual Arts at CAE (2015). Elynor has been in various group exhibitions in the last six years including (but not limited to) ‘Limbs’, Jerico Contemporary, Sydney (2021) ‘Sunday Echoes’, No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne (2020) ‘Smalls’, Otomys Gallery, Melbourne (2020). Her solo exhibitions include ‘I haven’t seen the moon tonight’ Otomys Gallery, Melbourne (2020). Elynor was the recipient of the Buller Arts Residency Award (2020) and the Macfarlane Fund Residency (2019).