ARTIST STATEMENT
KIRSTY BUDGE
(I’VE GOT) HALF A MIND
INTERVIEW FOR THE VIEWER
My therapist’s name is Kylie. This is perfect for me because I was born in 1981 and by 1990, I was the proud owner of a pink Kylie Minogue lunchbox with matching thermos. I found it at a garage sale and it was purchased with pocket money. I could not believe my luck. The Kylie lunchbox was too big for my school bag so it stayed at home, housing felt-tip pens and coloured pencils. Some years later, this lunchbox became the communal colouring-in box at my Nana’s house for the younger siblings and cousins.
It was important to me that everyone knew the box was originally mine. In the absence of a permanent marker, I scratched my name into the plastic so that all concerned were made acutely aware of the obvious. But of course, this was just an object that was used and then discarded when things changed, only to be remembered upon reflection. The value of that light pink Kylie lunchbox exists only in my head, and with one hand on it, my heart.
It is now the year 2022 and Kylie the therapist remembers everything I’ve told her over the past 12 years, which I find impressive because there was a three year gap when I didn’t see her. It means something to me when people remember the things I’ve shared in confidence. Kylie has helped to ground me in the present. She says that I have lived most of my life in my head and she is right. She has encouraged me to write. I am not a writer, in fact I loathe it. Writing is anxiety inducing, it feels humiliating and dangerous. It’s like I can hear recordings of moments and fragments of thoughts, I “sound insane” and will inevitably be misunderstood and ridiculed by an imaginary audience. In this instance, the loathing, self- deprecation and attempts at humour are signs of fear, avoidance and self-protection. I love words but prefer to read, it’s a lot safer for everyone.
I keep diary-esque notebooks that assist me by being a garbage dump for the purging of thoughts, feelings, news and events. They also kindly act as something between a processing plant and a breeding ground for clarity, courage and connection. I cheat by scribbling in shorthand, which might look like I care less than I do, but like many other things, these notebooks are simply vessels, albeit private and free of judgement.The canvas is also a vessel but one I choose to share and make public.
At the moment I appear to be a painter of negative space, literally and figuratively. I’m a painter of the background, of the metaphorical and physical absence and lack, of the dark recesses, of shadows, of subtext, of the scene behind the scenes, of layered amendments, clues and complex cover ups. Of a dirty unearthing of absurd situations that require objective deliberation in order to proceed. They are an illusion of new space, hidden frameworks and secret structures, exposing the remnants of history at the forefront. All figures and forms are found, relieved, embodied, illuminated, buried and built, through oil paint. It’s an abyss, a crypt of melancholia teetering between disgust and optimism but with some moments of light at the end or on the other side. Somewhere around here.
These nine paintings are the result of a lived experience. Of someone existing, escaping and amusing one’s self. I was here etc, etc. These works do not completely translate to screen and it’s not important for me that they do or for you, the viewer/reader, to see all the same things that I did, do, or will do.
Fortunately, that side of things is completely out of my control and thankfully, no longer a concern.
— Kirsty Budge, 2022