Yvonne Cullivan

My work evolves from a contemplation of transformation. Change may be occurring in an immediate sense; physical, emotional, cerebral, or in the external environment; social, geographical, cultural. There is also a reflection of time; evolution and transformation over time, acclimatization. Adaptation may follow at a slower, more subconscious pace to the transforming stimulus. My work bears witness to this cyclical process of change and adjustment to change; it observes, documents, quietly comments. There is a meditative quality present which is borne of a slow and thorough observation over time and which requests a similar quality of deliberation from its audience. In this manner, I attempt to create space and time for the act of contemplation itself.

The work also attempts a sense of personal or social narrative or history. From time to time in its formation, it will reach beyond the mobile studio to engage directly with the community and locality. The media used vary and are chosen for suitability of expression, however the manner in which they are employed is of a pattern. The subject of a print may be revealed through a tedious and time-consuming burnishing of scored surface, of a painting through a myriad of transparent layers, of audio with the overlapping of voice in meandering conversation, of video with silences resulting from prolonged periods of standing and watching. Visual qualities hark back to chiaroscuro, abstract and clarify in tandem, create an illusion of depth and of enclosure.