MAKING, BREAKING, MAKING: REFLECTING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF COMPLEX TRAUMA.
This project investigates the multifaceted nature of traumatic memory through the making and breaking of handmade objects grounded in feminine roles. By creatively exploring the process of forming and fragmenting domestic artefacts, my work embodies the tension between feminine and feminist roles and the fraught dynamics of mental fracturing inherent in developmental trauma.
I am an emerging, print-informed, mixed-media artist living and working in Melbourne. My work is shaped by autobiographical traumatic memory. It relies on art’s ability to convey affect, offering opportunities for empathic reflection without the need for a specific narrative. I often deal with the challenging aspects of traumatic memory such as shame and fragmentation. This is balanced by work which reflects coping strategies and protest. My communication simultaneously reveals and conceals aspects of my experience. I thus engage with the overwhelming power of trauma’s paradoxical nature without attempting to resolve it. I work with traditional and experimental ceramics and print techniques, photography, textiles, and artists’ books for their ability to embody emotion, intimacy and issues of disclosure and documentation relevant to my work.
instagram: @chiara_zeta_art