This week marks the first week of my NERAM Residency at Home. Like with any project, the starting point for me is always preparation and inspiration! For this, I set out to complete a number of tasks – stocking up on painting materials, preparing canvases, and setting up my studio ready for the task. Once prepared, I travelled to Armidale to gain some inspiration for a body of work. I was extremely lucky to go into the NERAM storeroom and look at their vast and diverse collections. I gushed to see some of my artistic heroes’ works in the racks – Margaret Olley, David Fairbairn, Norman Lindsay and Herbert Badham just to name a few. In particular, I was intrigued by the works within the Hinton Collection. Many of the artworks here provide a snapshot into Australian artistic practice in the early twentieth century, which underpins our field today. While this collection was impressive, I was disappointed to see the lack of female artist representation, unfortunately a sign of times past.
There is one work in the Hinton collection in particular that has me exploding with ideas. I look forward to telling you all about it next week.
– Erika Sorby @esorbyartist
NERAM’s Residency at Home is supported by Arts North West through their Micro Grant Program.
