Mary Peacock is interested in what lies underneath.
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The Melbourne-based artist works with layers upon layers of fine tissue paper, combining intricate detail with expansive size to map the landmark Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne.
“It has an incredible history: the Magdalene laundries [an institution to house ‘fallen women’ at the time], for over a hundred years it was a closed community as a convent, the Wurundjeri people who lived there for tens of thousands of years prior to white settlement - and I realised this was a walking project,” she said.
“I was just walking, walking and through my soles absorbing.”
When she spoke with The Examiner, Peacock was wrapping up a month-long residency at the Kings Bridge Cottage, as part of the Launceston City Council’s Artist in Residence program. Three works in Peacock’s The Mapping Project – designed around the Abbotsford Convent – will be exhibited at Sawtooth Artist Run Initiative in April.
The first, The Map (2015), was a “site-responsive”, painstakingly layered tissue paper document made crisp, durable and translucent with PVA glue. The second, Archival Images (2015), a collection of Peacock’s interpretation of archival photos of the Convent in years 1863 to 1975. The third and final work, The Collaborative Map (2015), a collection of responses from people Peacock met at the convent, including people she met when she worked as a tour guide there.
Gesturing to a particularly intricate ink scrawl on translucent paper within The Collaborative Map, Peacock is excited.
“I just think this is so beautiful. People leave this wonderful language behind, you know?
“[This was] the most ordinary woman who said 'I can't draw, I won't do that to you' and I said 'I'm not going to die, just do something'.”
I was just walking, walking and through my soles absorbing.
- Mary Peacock
This was the first time Peacock had exhibited the work all in one room, allowing the viewer to be transported into the world of the convent – an imaginative map of a beloved place.
“One way or the other I'm always trying to work out what lies beneath things, more than actually what I can see and experience.
“Underneath place, experience, words - that metaphorical or experiential part of life.”
ARTY FACTS – The Mapping Project and other works by various artists
WHEN: Until 23 April 2016. Wednesday to Friday, 12-5pm. Saturday 10-2pm.
WHERE: Sawtooth ARI.
