ARTIST STATEMENT
‘Chronic News’ explores the underlying concepts of the world’s COVID-19 Pandemic, through the layering and repetition of symbolic motifs and newspaper articles, emphasising the emotional and psychological damage of the pandemic through contemporary and personal contexts. The pandemic's most severe times had newspapers overflowing with pessimistic statistics, bringing daily experiences into stark visual and literary form. The masked portrait, a repetitious motif, has been used to visually unify the work, inviting viewers to engage with their own personal recollections and lived experiences. ‘Chronic News’ speaks to a world-wide contemporary audience who have their own connection to the Global Pandemic.
ARTWORK PROCESS
This Body of Work installation incorporates a diverse array of processes that include collaged newsprint on canvas with a semi-transparent layers of a synthetic polymer portrait painting; photographic documentation of an office installation of works that included further post-documentation digital manipulation; photographic documentation of a local newsagency installation with a digitally-edited newspaper cover of the original canvas painting. In addition, a stack of 'newspapers' with large-scale digitally-designed printed cover pages have been created to complete the installation presentation, bringing a three-dimensional element to the other wall-mounted two-dimensional components, as they are placed on a plinth in the foreground.
