INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRACTICE BASED HUMANITIES: Volume 4, December 2021

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ROLLING ISSUE: PANDEMIC PRACTICES

Malcom Bywaters: Silent Space: a Cancer Carer Personal Artistic Journey 

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Keywords: Cancer, carer, contemporary art, COVID -19, Bushfires

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This paper will discuss the body of artwork Silent Space  (Bywaters, 2020-21) in context to the researcher’s personal accounts as a cancer carer during the COVID-19 pandemic. It points to an Art Thinking methodology that considers the concept of interior – the subjective – and exterior – the objective – in an approach to engage painting as a self-referential mechanism. The outcomes of this research attest these key indicators as a way to visually overcome the barriers of emotional trauma experienced as a cancer carer. In doing so, it positions the documented artefacts as a means to further engage the cancer journey that my family has endured through painting and congeal these moments in the advancement of my studio practise.

Shaun Wilson: Fear Mapping Place and the Art of Contagion in 'Wither They Say'

 

Keywords: Fear, contagion, plague, contemporary art, England, place

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This article examines the key term "fear mapping" in creating artworks from Australian artist Shaun Wilson's series Wither They May (Wilson, 2021). It draws attention to aspects of Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, Hodges’ Loimologia, and the facsimile from a London Parish Bill of Mortality from September 1665 to construct a visual testament of fear mapping through studio practice. Discussion is based on historical and philosophical contexts, which enable an ontological grounding for the works of art. The purpose of this paper is to show how studio practice can be used to think about COVID-19 and in a broader context, develop ways to integrate historical and philosophical approaches to represent contagion in art.