Kellie O’Dempsey
Wish you were here in Pink with eyeball fish | video and mixed media | 150 x 150cm
Sunshine Coast National Art Prize 2024 - Finalist
[Image courtesy of the artist and Jan Manton Gallery, Brisbane.]
Artist Statement
Absurd and uplifting, Wish you were here in Pink with eyeball fish visualises the often unseen, monotonous, and highly gendered nature of care work. The balancing figure in this context evokes the monotony of domestic labour, capturing the intertwined states of endurance and exhaustion leading to a surreal and almost mind-altering experience.
In search of progress, ghostly figures attempt to travel, yet go nowhere in an oddball world. Figurative and abstract forms gently smash together as we all fumble for connection. Through repetitive rhythm, monotonous loops, neon colours, remnants of billboard posters, images in non-specific locations and an unspecified time, Wish you were here in Pink with eyeball fish blends the physical and the psychological for a moment of hypnotic but joyful reprieve.