In 2017 I happened upon a reproduction of Sonia Delaunay’s Electric Prisms. Delaunay had painted this piece in 1914 after witnessing newly installed electric lamp posts on an evening in Paris. When I looked at this picture I could recognise, even in reproduction, the movement of Delaunay’s hand through the composition. At the time I had a newborn and the world seemed to have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. I would drive to get her to sleep and increasingly found myself exploring the new wind farms that had been built around the edges of Ballaarat where we live. Looking at that picture of Electric Prisms, I saw an image from the past that also encapsulated the present; I saw a connection between the lamp posts and the wind turbines, a connection between the political and social uncertainties of 1914 and 2017, and beyond this I saw a continuation, a future. It was as if Delaunay’s painting had a life of its own and it was speaking to me.

In 2021 I began a Master of Fine Art at RMIT and discovered that the experience of having a painting speak to you is not uncommon and in fact the phenomenon has been written about and studied in depth. The German art critic and theorist Isabelle Graw, in particular, has written about this experience and coined the term ‘vitalist projection’ to describe it. Graw theorises that these vitalist projections are made possible in painting exactly because a viewer can recognise traces of the artist within the work.

This became the focus of my MFA research and experimentation; how do I leave a trace of myself in the work so as to give a painting the chance to develop vitality - that it may expand into a life of its own? For me, the answer was to reduce the space between my body and the material, and to engage in a process of improvisation so as not to impose a conscious agenda.

My painting practice begins at the point where language fails me. I feel my way through. What I found as I began to experiment and improvise with canvas, is that I could no longer bear to pull the material taut across a stretcher bar. Instead, I felt the need to allow the canvas to retain its capacity for movement. By pre-painting rolls of canvas and using torn strips in place of a brushstroke, I can use my whole body to compose a painting, not just my hand.

The works in Dancing on the foggy coast were developed through these extended experimentations and recorded by setting a camera to take a photograph every 1-2 seconds. The resulting work has been disorienting to me, and it has taken a full year to realise that the ‘disorientation’ is the point.

The uncertainties of 2017 have magnified. And my body, like all bodies, is marinating in this tangle. We are witnessing the vibrancy and vitality of our world be consumed. Stunned by the consequences of this furious and barbaric civilisation. Wrestling with the weight of it. Praying for renewal. Dancing on the foggy coast. 

Dancing on the foggy coast by Mairin Briody 30 August - 16 September 02024, Rubicon ARI

The works in this exhibition were produced on the traditional lands of the Wadawurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung and Narungga people. I pay my respects to elders past and present. I recognise that sovereignty was never ceded, colonisation has not ended and this always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

My thanks to the Ballarat Arts Foundation for the small equipment grant I received allowing me to purchase a camera used to produce the below works.

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