[STAY GOLD series]

Acrylic on canvas (unframed)

February 2018

This is a story I didn’t know I would tell today on Valentine’s Day and I haven’t even said anything about censorship yet!

The story goes that about a year ago a lovely lady on the other side of town started looking out for art. She didn’t see anything she loved until she was struck by cupid’s arrow when she came across Venus on a chance hashtag. What ARE the chances, I ask? Yes, again. I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky because The Underdog is now SOLD to the lovely lady! And do you know what, this love story gives me those goddam dopamine butterflies.

14 February 2018

NSFW (Not Suitable For Work) Group Art Exhibition at BSIDE Gallery 28 February – 4 March

NSFW features artworks at BSIDE Gallery by 34 Melbourne artists in the form of paintings, drawings and digital artwork. Don’t bring your Nanna along to this one! NSFW is a group exhibition that will shock, appal, and excite. Exploring the notion that certain topics are not suitable for work, these artists will delve into the depths of the socially inappropriate. With censorship inhibiting artistic expression more than ever, this show aims to tear down the walls and prompt discussion about all the nitty-gritty bits. This is brutally honest, insightful, confronting and unashamed.

The Underdog explores both the way a woman sees herself and the way she is perceived at the end of mastectomy and reconstruction, whether the surgery is prophylactic or due to breast cancer. The censorship by social media of breasts, and nipples in particular, negatively impacts upon the visual resources available to 1 in 8 women with a need to know. Attitudes to baring all in a show and tell motion are being slowly, proudly and positively broken down by a host of empowered, self-proclaimed topless activists and cancer warriors.

This painting is part of the series, Stay Gold, where the story and the memory become as beautiful and as valuable as the gold in a sea of nuggets. In this case the scars are the stories and the gold celebrates staying true to yourself. The pink represents all women impacted by breast cancer.

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