Michelle Day, Trace, 2016. Sawdust, ink, paint, silicone, polymer composite, wax and electronic light elements, 30cm x 28cm x 18 cm. Image: Paul Haymage.
OPENING EVENT Wednesday 20 March from 6:00pm at ANCA Gallery. Free to attend, no bookings required.
‘What Remains’ consists of a series of small sensory objects that viewers can peer into to discover illusory spaces of texture, movement, light and smell. Through this work Michelle considers the ‘essence of life’ that remains in vacated spaces and has attempted to capture a fragment of these real and imagined sensory experiences in her work.
Michelle developed this work while living in Thailand and travelling around empty houses on the Seto Islands of Japan. Wandering through each country she recorded textures, surfaces, debris and indications of recent presence and spent time in vacated and old spaces.
She actively attempted to hold on to the feeling of presence in empty rooms and was most intrigued by the simultaneously living and lifeless state of each space. In her work Michelle says ‘I aim for the interior spaces of the objects to be both unsettling and attractive, to replicate a sense of the uncanny that I felt in these vacated spaces.’
Michelle Day is a sculptor and installation artist based in Canberra. She develops her work predominantly from silicone, fabric, fibers, found objects, steel, glass and light.
Michelle graduated with honors from the ANU School of Art in 2009. From 2015-2017 she resided in Thailand and completed a Master of Fine Arts at Chiang Mai University.
Michelle has exhibited nationally in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Ballarat, and internationally in Japan, New Zealand and Thailand. She is the recipient of several prestigious grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, artsACT, The Freedman Foundation and The Australian Embassy, Thailand.