Artist Meaghan Shelton has undertaken her invitation to the Kia Sulc Artist in Residence Program whilst on the road and in lockdown interstate.
Her work has serendipitously come about through the discovery of a small red suitcase full of discarded children’s toys in a rural opportunity shop.
For the artist under Covid there’s been, in a sense, the feeling that ‘school’s out’. Projects have been put on hold, postponed or cancelled and necessity has been the mother of invention for many. Refocus, reworking ideas and perhaps even aspects of ourselves… the gathering of sticks has been called for and these works are purely just that. Made with found objects serendipitously found in a rural opportunity shop, some kindly donated by friends, Meaghan Shelton’s body of work Assembly speaks to reckonings.
She has gone back to basics, back to square one with small works on canvas and miniature assemblages utilising children’s toy building blocks. Like the Irish folk song Michael Finnegan, to begin again.
Shelton takes inspiration from the Russian Constructivists as she engages text, form and colour for her assemblages and small paintings to build a city in miniature. The playful aesthetics of Assembly, created during lock down, belies the darker implications of contemporary commentary in her new works.
Shelton breathes playfulness anew into her miniature assemblage works and paintings for her solo exhibition at the Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre Aug 18- Sept 13, 2020.
This project is made possible by Noosa Regional Council and Noosa Regional Arts Development Fund.
