Original painting title: A Year of Washing Frame size 60 x 85 cm
Victoria Albuquerque 1969
A Year of Washing
2021
Oil painted on stretched linen
Framed with wood painted off black
60 x 85 cm
Shortlisted Jackson's Art Prize
The Identity Series
Starting in the summer of 2020, I was doing many different roles, which felt like wearing a different hat for each role. Maybe it was the isolation, but I became so much more aware than I had been before of the different and distinct identities through which I was living. And then I saw that this was something that all of us do, whether as mum, dad, son or daughter, grandparent, employee, CEO, only child, brother, sister, student, gym buddy, yoga lover, friend, counsellor, carer... the list is unique to each self, endless and constantly changing. These identities allow us to understand ourselves in relation to others, and to our surroundings or activities. Identity also creates a link with our heritage and history, and the incomplete and subtle ways in which knowledge is handed down from one generation to the next. In my work this sometimes appears (or disappears), leading to questions about whether the image represents an observation from reality or a hand-me-down memory conjured by the imagination. Though we label our identities to make connection, in reality they are unique. In that way our understanding of what we see is also unique. Likewise, each brushstroke: hard, messy, smooth - is unique, so is the mix of colours, which can have subtle variations.
At the start of this exploration, I painted a couple of paintings of straight washing lines; Blue Towel and What Would Happen If I Wasn't Here? I wanted to explore the different ways washing was dried. In 2021, I explored locally to find a different shaped washing line, this is where A Year of Washing was formed. I explored the contrast of an old listed building dating back to 15th century and a modern rotary which was designed to take a lot more washing at one time.
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