JILL CHISM | 'Connected' | Mixed media assemblage

"At one level, Connected, makes an ironic but deeply true statement about how seemingly disparate elements are somehow related. There are masculine and feminine elements, rough or refined, battered (by wind and sea) and delicate objects sitting together. It was when I was half-way through the piece that I realised its auto biographical content: my father’s coping saw my mother’s doily and pieces I had collected while sailing the Whitsundays. There is also a glass piece derived from a photograph taken at Mackay Harbour, (a sample from my public art works). After realising the connection, I added the Brahminy Kite. I’ve always related to this bird as a talisman since it has been present through my life from childhood.

While creating this work I noticed how apparently disconnected objects can integrate into a balanced whole. I saw this as a metaphor for what is possible when we humans start seeing our interconnectedness rather than our separateness.

At a metaphysical level the work alludes to the possibility of moving beyond the understanding of a separate self to a deeper understanding of our alignment with beingness or consciousness where ‘there is no self, there is no other".