Plate 180

(196) Sheena Mathieson – House Keeping the Emu

(1195) Anna Bellinger – ´Human Nests ‘

About this Artwork
Price: $200 AUD

An interpretation. From one encyclopedia to another: The Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge from the 1950s, to my very own 1963 Dean’s Supreme Book for Children, which I have rediscovered as part of Door to Door. Outmoded, white interpretations of our world, smattered with new learning of mine about the emu as the creator spirit that used to fly and look over the land. Layered with cut-outs, frottage, print, watercolour and shellac.

About Sheena

Sheena is a visual artist and community facilitator specialising in crafting art from the found and bringing people together to explore their own creativity in inspiring and vibrant settings.
Woman-made is the business name under which Sheena operates.
Sheena’s artwork explores the world around us through colour and the use of preloved surfaces and objects. She crafts atmospheric paintings, drawings, collages, objets d’art and wearable art pieces. Recurrent themes include the human and natural form and spirit, and our tenuous relationship with the environment. Her work has a strong physical presence.
For Sheena, a preloved object or surface carries with it texture and emotions.
‘Whilst I have created many works on the traditional blank canvas or sheet of paper, my preference is to work on a surface which carries other narratives. This is where I feel most comfortable.’ Through the manipulation of the surface and form, Sheena’s artworks beg to be touched – they can be touched.

Link to Sheena’s Art Aviso profile HERE

Sheena was provided with the following page from Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge Encyclopedia:

Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge Encyclopedia
Volume 9
Questions and Answers on things that interest you and me.
Where Birds keep house.

About this Artwork

Price: 120 EUR 

This work was a response to the encyclopedia page ´Where birds make house´

´Human Nests ´ represents the idea that in contrast to birds, which use found objects and only as much as they need, to build their nests, we as humans create our homes from accumulating more and more material objects – these objects bought new, from increasingly unethical sources, material wealth being the focus of our nest building habits. This fact was marked during lockdown, while shut away in our homes and forced to shop online, by countless deliveries from well-known distributors. I was struck by just how often, sometimes several times a day these deliveries were made to the closed doors of the quiet houses we live amongst. I imagined ever-increasing piles of cardboard packaging piling up, filling up space and becoming part of the interior landscape of those homes. Their inhabitants cloistered and comforted by consumerism.

About Anna

I am a visual artist interested in the human relationship with nature, the nature of being human and stories that lie within.
My work is influenced by both my degree studies in Textile Design, and my childhood growing up in the English countryside – a childhood in which I was encouraged to observe, respect and appreciate nature. The fundamental elements of colour, pattern and repetition of these influences still inform my work today.
My process involves a starting point which might be an idea a concept, sometimes just a title, inspired by human behaviour and/or natural surroundings. Having used found objects and photography in recent years to explore the human influence on the natural world, for the past year I have been working with charcoal and acrylics to explore the textures, forms and movement of the Stone Pine tree, a tree native and crucial to the coastal area where I live. This project has led me to explore fractal patterns in nature and the similarities between the arboreal shapes of the this tree, and the human form. Charcoal drawings made from life are then developed in the studio using acrylics – in this way moving towards a kind of ´distorted figuration´ that produces ambiguous images. I am currently working with a life model in order to move further towards this idea of merging the human with the ´natural´ to explore and represent the reality that as humans we are as much part of nature as any other living thing.

Link to Anna’s Art Aviso profile HERE

Anna was provided with the following page from Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge Encyclopedia:

Volume 9
Questions and Answers on things that interest your and me
Where Birds keep house