Acrylic on canvas (unframed)

This is Julie-mermie, otherwise known as talented Melbourne artist and jewellery maker Fickle Nellie. She is just as beautiful as a mermaid as she is in real life. (Maybe not quite so pale.)

Inspired by Shirley-mermie, SNARE, this commission was a joy to complete. It is also a surprise gift for Julie’s wedding anniversary: yes, she is his fintastic catch of two decades!

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Acrylic on fine art paper

30 x 45cm (unframed)

November 2017

This underwater love was commissioned by a husband as a surprise birthday present for his wife. She had really liked Sink Back Into The Ocean 1, an underwater mermaid, sold at Thou Art Mum Green With Envy exhibition in August 2017. Together we worked on finding an image he thought she would connect with and then a little bit harder on keeping it a secret!

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BREATHE series

[Shirley Manson as a mermaid.]

Acrylic on canvas (unframed)

30 x 30 cm

Thou Art Mum exhibition GRIDS, 2 December 2017 – 31 January 2018, The Vines Cafe, Diamond Creek

I painted Shirley Manson as a mermaid caught in a net after hearing her discuss feminism (equality) and the idea that there is a global movement towards eradicating women’s rights.

Today’s world is quite different to the one I thought it would be when I was studying at uni in the Nineties and listening to Stupid Girl, a song about female empowerment. Twenty years on I feel angry and helpless about it, floating and drowning in my usual mermie way.

SNARE is an exploration of the daily fight for rights by women in a society which is more caught up than ever in the superficiality of what women look like and not the importance of what they are made of.

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Sink Back Into The Ocean 1 & 2 are acrylic paintings inspired by mermaids, even though you can’t see any evidence of their tails. They explore feeling vulnerable but protected all at the same time – a state of sinking and floating.

JACQUI’S TESTIMONIAL

“I’d been looking for some unique art for a while.  When I saw Pascale’s Brigitte Bardot black and white painting I knew I needed a Pascale Garlinge original! Unfortunately, the Brigitte painting was too small for the space I wanted to fill.  Unsure of exactly what I wanted, I asked her to commission me something beautiful and unique. However, when I saw the beginnings of her two ‘green with envy’ exhibition paintings I knew they were meant for me. That was it, perfect, and I am so happy with them – they fit the space perfectly! Thank you, Pascale.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 26 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“Gonna get up, gonna get up, gonna get up… Walk right in, walk, walk, walk right in… Cause you ride on time, ride on time, cause you ride on time. ~ Black Box.

Me got a final call from the tummy hospital this morning. I know, again! I was genuinely surprised. It was Dr. G. calling. He said, “Sista! Looks like the Melbourne coastguard has located a black box about 100km south of your house. It was lying at the bottom of a hot spring on the Mornington Peninsula. Peculiar, innit?! Well, they’ve opened it up and guess what? It’s got your mojo in it. You’d better go and get it, sista!” What news! And RIGHT ON TIME, too, because by strange coincidence I happen to be spending the weekend at aforementioned Peninsula Hot Springs with some of my Pink Hope mermie-sistas. What are the chances??? I didn’t plan the date of this jolly jaunt but guess what? The numbers say it’s the first anniversary of my preventative mastectomies. So what are the chances? I’d say slim but possible because there is nearly always a silver lining. Today I finally get to feel all those things I’ve been denied for so long: joy, relief, celebration and a new normal.

This is the last page in my story. It’s been hard but easy to tell, lonely but connected, dramatic but repetitive and boring, crazy but sane. I am not going to preach to anyone but I encourage you to remember to look after your physical health and, more importantly, your mental health. They are both so precious and you don’t know just how precious until the day they’re not quite right. But you can definitely come out stronger and more determined than you ever thought you could be when you were stuck deep, deep down in those dark moments without your mojo.

So I’m ending the story’s soundtrack with this 1989 song which, now I remember, is sampled from disco’s very own “Love Sensation”. Makes sense. It seems like a natural year to finish in… on the brink of those teenage years, still childlike but about to come of age. Self-love, self-observation, self-preservation all complete one year on! Job done, y’all. Jump around!”

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A painting inspired by mermaids, even though there is no evidence of a tail. It explores feeling vulnerable and protected all at the same time – a state of sinking and floating.

Inspired by the colour of living grasses and leaves, creatures both real and imaginary emit a green hue and the colour green becomes a symbol of life, hope and envy.

Exhibited at Green With Envy, Volumes Café, Eltham

August 2017

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 21 June 2017

THE INBETWEENERS series (2017)

“Yesterday I tried very hard to be normal, for the morning at least. The shower bop was back! Hip hop hooray! I peeled the remaining steri-strips off my tummy to the dawn disco. What lay beneath? To my surprise, all was good. A short smile lay under my tummy button and when I looked at my torso in the mirror I thought about all the scars in star constellations. The plough? Is that the same as the saucepan? The southern cross? Orion? I’d better brush up on my astronomy for a bigger picture. Full face on, proper clothes on, watch on. Good to go out out.

I had my bloods taken at “Gastrocare.” Gastro Lady didn’t care that much. In fact she didn’t give a stuff about me! I wished Gastrocare was a Gastropub or La Gastronomie or ANYTHING food related so I went straight to Macca’s for a second brekkie. Food dreams can come true! Sausage-egg McMuffin later I got my specs tightened from all the hospital overuse, then hit the sales for some retail therapy and general joy. I shop therefore I am, right? I existed just by being a flat, grey dag out in that daggy shopping mall. But it was weird. I was so, so tired. And still so bloody teary. Who goes shopping when their eyes are all glassy? When they are on the edge? Fleetwood Mac sang over the sound system, “Something’s happenin’, happenin’ to me. My friends say I’m acting peculiarly.” S’true. I was dizzy, ditzy, dopey… and I am really too embarrassed to chit chat about some of my foggy blunders in the shops. I should not have been out on the streets. Straight back home for tea, soup and bed. Game over.

While I was reading the whole internet on the weekend I came across a story about the historical vicious attacks on the Lil Mermaid in Copenhagen. I saw her in the flesh as a backpacker but until now I never knew what lay beneath her: twice decapitated, blown up, arm sawn off and covered in paint, to name but a few trials. The word they teach my lil mermie rugrats in education today is ‘resilience’. I think it is a good word to teach them and as long as I feel as broken as I do now, this arty girl can at least look to the resilience of the Lil Mermaid to believe that things can only get better. D:Reams can come true.”

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