Portrait of the Artist as a Kitten Dressed as a Bird, with the Bag that Holds her Hopes and Dreams Painting

These paintings are part of the Absurdist 'selfie' series, exploring identity; who am I now? This is a question faced by most physical performers at some point in their lives, and it is an interesting game to play... now that the anxiety of actually figuring it out has passed. I think it is also a valid question most people face in their lives, whether through transitions or loss. This series is a reaction to the way we tend to portray ourselves as something else, and the emphasis placed on 'identity' in this age of social media. Do we risk being honest? Do we risk showing ourselves truly or do we try and show ourselves as something we think may be more appealing? This series #whoaminow? is a visual transition from the work I was doing previously as a physical performance artist/ In contemporary Circus and Street Theatre. I studied and performed at an international level, in the genre where the artists play with the absurd, the abstract, and the surreal, which is known as Clown, in it’s post-modern form. I have an extensive list of international festival credits with this work. I was a hula hoop virtuosa, and I studied that specialty at the Moscow State Circus School. I studied post-modern Clown with various masters of the arts, in various countries, and my signature piece was a hula hoop variation of the ballet divertissement The Dying Swan. “an excellent adaptation of a classical theme with an intelligent wink from Down Under” tete-a-tete festival Rastatt Germany. I documented my experiences in an award winning book- A True HIstory of the Hula Hoop' published by Picador in 2009. I followed this with a novel called 'Clownland' in which I went on a quest to the find the secret of happiness, in a series of experiences and conversations, collecting philosophy from the CLlwns. This was a subjective study in which I allowed the Clowns to lead the way in a series of dares. '...a work of admirable daring and spirit ' (The Age, Sydney Morning Herald) While I have always painted, it is only recently that the physical exploration of the absurd clicked with the visual painting practise.