"Measured"

Each morning the day begins with my dog taking me for a walk in the bushlands where we live – beautiful Dja Dja Wurrang country. It is a routine we are both familiar with and look forward to. There are rhythms to this activity – his gait on four legs, quick, slow, fast, stop. It is always full of exploration, playfulness, excitement, and optimism - mine on two legs adjusting my pace to try and stay with him, constantly learning from him. He sniffs, ears pricked, eyes searching, alert, always attentive, open to surprise.  I too stay attentive, listening, touching, smelling, looking - breathing in the air deeply. There is a fragile, yet resilient rhythm to the flora and fauna in the bush which we are respectful of and which we both are becoming more attuned to. As we slowly find our place in its complex ecosystems. Understanding that we are visitors to this place we love. 

Each day in the studio also has its own complex rhythms - its own measures - its own distractions and moments of attentiveness and learning. I bring my experiences from the walks, and from the world, into the studio, to find ways for the experiential to become embodied and coalesce. It is a routine I am becoming more familiar with, more accepting of. I am learning to navigate a more thoughtful measured approach which allows for objectivity and subjectivity to operate in different ways and at different times in my art practice.

 To measure according to numerous definitions, is to ascertain the size, amount, or degree of something by using an instrument or device marked in standard units. To measure also means to assess the importance, effect, or value of something.

 Reliability and validity are concepts used to evaluate the quality of research. The consistency of a measure provides reliability. While the accuracy of a measure provides validation. I have come to realize that these concepts are not restricted solely to evaluating the quality of research, but rather extend out into the world. The act of measuring is something I have observed operates in much of my daily life including my studio practice. But in doing so it asks to make space for that which might be unreliable and to find other means and forms of validation.

 All the artworks in the exhibition begins with some form of formal measurement; ruled lines, grids, triangles, which maintains a structure for me to work with and against. The motifs I draw on and colours I employ, reflect long held disparate interests, both material and ethereal - tropes in abstraction, modernisms, textiles, gardening, daydreaming, cultural memories, travel, migration, and place. Each of the paintings while deeply personal, use familiar forms which allow viewers to find their own entry points into the work. In this way I hope we might arrive at points of shared (or divergent) values or meanings (whatever they are), which reflect how we navigate the world we live in.

 The title for this exhibition reflects this wonderful relationship between that which can be measured objectively, quantitatively, and that which occupies more subjective, qualitative spaces. The complex and nuanced decision-making process in the studio relies on trying to ascertain the importance or value of something by working within these parameters to arrive at a body of resolved work.

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