Talking Practice: Arielle Morris

Arielle Morris is an artist and florist based in Sydney and she is also a teacher at Tom Bass Sculpture Studio School. We chatted to Arielle about what she got up to during the COVID-19 lockdown.

During lockdown I made a very tongue-in-cheek sculpture about the different ways my husband and I were dealing with being stuck in the house. I was losing my mind, while he remained solid and sensible. I also thought it would be fun to do a figure study with two figures, and play with how they relate and interact with each other. It's not quite finished, but I thought it was worth showing here none the less (see above), as it so accurately depicts my emotional state during this period!
 
I also rediscovered my love of painting. I find it interesting how, in times of trouble, we often seek out old familiar art making practices that we haven't revisited for a long while. This was certainly the case for me during this strange time -  I was working much less (at my florist job) and found the notion of not being productive really confronting. To fill my time I decided to do some flower paintings. Initially I didn't think I would do anything with these, and so I found it really freeing to just make them for fun, just for myself, without that harsh inner critic deciding if they were any good or not. They are painted in gouache, and then later scanned and photo-shopped into a repeating pattern so that I can apply them to all sorts of products, from pillow cases to wallpaper and apparel and shoes (see below).

Arielle Morris