Bridget Butler 1849
I have always loved fabric. Generations of women in my family have made our own garments. I have long known how it drapes and moves but in water it is new and different: This body is an exploration of the Liminal, the gaps between life and death, the story of my maternal ancestor Bridget Butler. Bridget was a deliberate arsonist, convicted in 1849, with her sixteen year old daughter Anne. They escaped the famine of their homeland for seven years punishment in Van Diemen’s Land on the all-female ship, Australasia. The night before they dropped anchor in Hobart, Bridget died. Her body was “committed to the deep” somewhere in the Great Southern Ocean. Anne survived. I made these photographic works underwater in response to this epic human story. These works with their unsettling ambiguous beauty evoke something of a Contemporary Sublime.
Ascend
Digital photograph in acrylic block
10 x 15 x 3 cm
$150
First Dress
Digital photograph in acrylic block
10 x 15 x 3 cm
$150
Push Down 1
Digital photograph in acrylic block
10 x 15 x 3 cm
$150
Push Down 2
Digital photograph in acrylic block
10 x 15 x 3 cm
$150
Dissolve
Digital photograph in acrylic block
10 x 15 x 3 cm
$150
Trish’s work will be on display at the Judith Wright Centre from 29 November 2019 – 21 February 2020 as part of the Seasonal Sittings of Tiny Art – Summer.
Trish Callaghan’s late evolving art practice was originally about land and sky. Trish had many years of successfully working in pastel and acrylic and has now added photography. She recently completed a Bachelor Degree in Fine Art and Visual Culture. This made her research new themes, in which time Trish discovered the epic story of Bridget Butler. All previous practice was abandoned and new skills were taken up in underwater photography to complete a new body of work. Trish is now greatly interested in reflections, water, the Contemporary Sublime and the history of the sublime, notably Julia Kristeva‘s abject (Costelloe, 2012). Artists whose themes include identity, life and death, such as Anselm Kiefer, Anne Judell and Bill Viola and Tamara Dean are of interest.