Fill In The Unknown With Fantasy

Katie Eraser (b. 1986, Eora Nation (Sydney) Australia, lives and works Kulin Nation (Melbourne) Australia) explores the relationship between, the social experience of desire and destruction, in relation to mental health and the queer identity. New imaginings are generated from both instinctual, and intuitive dialogues, transposed into the visual narrative. Investigations of painting and sculpture explore shame and the aesthetics of intimacy, through a queer female lens, using subjectivity as a means to examine pain and joy. Working predominantly in abstract figuration, her work seeks to create beauty through the narration of mental health, employing affection and compassion for the figures depicted works, to permeate the space where there was once only suffering.

Eraser is currently studying her Masters of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne and holds a Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice from MIECAT Institute and a Bachelor of Design from Billy Blue College of Design. Since 2017 she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions. Eraser was awarded the Fortyfive Downstairs Emerging Artist Award in 2018. She is represented commercially by Studio Gallery, Melbourne. 

Artist Statement by Katie Eraser

The works in this show delve deeper into the curiosities I have around mental ill/wellness, how it presents in people, and the mask wearing that occurs to perform a wellness that is demanded from society. Using investigations initiated by Hal Foster’s seminal book on Surrealism, ‘Compulsive Beauty,’ I intend to use the  theories suggested in such to inform explorations of mental health. Thematically,  there is an interplay of symbols and experiments that locate themselves  between beauty and hysteria. Centering critical interpretation and the paranoid projections of my own lived experiences as a queer woman. I am propelled to distill musings on the exchange between an image of strong attraction and also subtle repulsions.

As Foster said, "The  estrangement of the familiar is essential to the uncanny." This body of work leaps off from this instigation to roam in the field of the real and imagined.

Exhibition runs from： Thursday 30th September - Sunday 17th October

Studio Gallery - 14 Dissik St - Cheltenham VIC

Gallery hours: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Monday - Sunday

Though our gallery doors are closed due to VIC lockdown we are working behind

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