Stevie Fieldsend
Sydney-based artist Stevie Fieldsend’s new exhibition hereafter at Artereal Gallery in Sydney continues the artist’s interest in working with textiles and metal to explore the way in which emotions and past traumas can be processed and integrated through the making of contemporary art. Fieldsend’s practice spans sculpture and installation, often encompassing materials such as glass, charred wood, steel and textiles. Her work seeks to detail an emotional state– more a feeling or sensation/bodily memory of a past event. She explains, “It’s about how feelings can become overwhelming and take on a life of their own, how we can be hijacked by our physiological sensations, which then spark into thoughts, which then become our perceived reality … a traumatic event may have happened decades ago, yet we still operate like a pre-programmed robot, constantly repeating actions that are reminiscent of the original event.
For me the process of making stuff helps with this.” Stevie Fieldsend has participated in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally and has also been a finalist in numerous prestigious prizes including the NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (2014), the Blake Prize (2013) and the Willoughby Sculpture Prize (2013), and her work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including Artbank. The exhibition runs until December 1, 2018.