Kirsty Budge
The Doing
3 April - 11 May 2019
Kirsty Budge’s work shifts between abstraction and figuration. In her new exhibition The Doing, Budge reflects on self and place, and the connection between the interior life and studio and domestic space. The works connect personal experiences, thought patterns, observations and environments through intuitive processes. Real and imagined forms are combined on the same picture plane and, through the process of mark-making, each is given equal value in the space of the painting. The structure of each painting emerges through a lengthy process of excavation and application by the artist, resulting in an image that is both a response to and a construction of a personal narrative.
Recent works by Budge incorporate a specific language that utilises pop culture as reference and also incorporates both historical and contemporary literary, artistic and social justice heroes/icons/commentators in ‘conversation’ with reality stars. Acting as a level bridge between personal experience and the final image, these references are used to mirror Budge’s personal behaviours, emotions and self-care strategies. Using humour and emotional vulnerability Budge aims to synthesise the challenge of how to live with oneself and others in a progressive and conscious way. In The Doing, Budge has become more explicitly personal and introspective, observing and documenting her daily life and environment and using the painting process and cast of references to interpret her own experience.
Kirsty Budge is a New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist. Recent exhibitions include NADA New York (Daine Singer, 2018), Gawkalitis, Daine Singer (2017), The Painters are In, Spring 1883 (Daine Singer, 2016), and I’m not desperate, you’re desperate, Sarah Scout Presents (2016). Group exhibitions include Killing Time, Chapter House Lane (2018); VCA 150 alumni 9x5, Margaret Lawrence Gallery (2017), Painting. More Painting, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2016), Spinnerei Leipzig, Germany (2016), Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery (2017), Return, Daine Singer (2015), Man, Tristian Koenig (2015); Pretty Shit, Incidents Above a Bar (2015) and Paintings, C3 (2014).
In 2018 Budge undertook a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, as recipient of an Art Gallery of New South Wales Studio Scholarship, and in 2019 will undertake a residency at the Caselberg Trust on the Otago Peninsula, New Zealand.
Budge has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from the Victorian College of the Arts, where she was recipient of the 2014 Stirling Collective Award for Painting. Her work is in the collections of Artbank and the City of Port Philip.
