Let’s welcome Jacqui Driver, our newest member of Sydney Printmakers, well known as a teacher, and for her large scale lithographs.
Here is how she describes her work:
Being a mother is complicated, the idea of mothering may extend from the romantic notions of unquestioning love through to the difficulties of ambivalence and the trauma of dealing with mental health issues, all concepts reflected in thecomplexity of my thickets. I see the corporeal pain of Rheumatoid Arthritis interconnected with the psychologicalwounding of transgenerational trauma as all encompassing, therefore I use installation to encompass my audience, surrounding them with images of entanglement and the folds and flows of silk drapes. Providing a means to metaphorically hug or be hugged and nurturing a safer space in which toexpress pain.
My work often involves collaboration with other artists who also deal with transgenerational trauma or mental health issues. I have collaborated previously with a dance-based performance artist, Lorcan Power, a sound artist, Dylan Marelić-Mcintyre and cinematographer, Darwin Schulz,resulting in the production of short films. The projected films add an extra element into my installations and broaden an audience experience of mothering interwoven with childhoodtrauma.
Overall, my work has a powerful presence which reveals the hidden complexity of mothering while challenging the cultural silence of living with the effects of transgenerational trauma.
Here is a link to an interview which Jacqui gave to More Than Reproduction in 2021. It explains more about her process.
