Paula McLoughlin - 'Settling'

Wednesday 21 August - Sunday 15 September 2019

Click here for artwork by Paula McLoughlin

“These screenprints are using a motif of a circle and target that I continue to use for a lot of different reasons. It started as homage to the artists who gave us a representation of a contemplative state with a political overtone. I have used this motif to represent a simple state of just existing and mark making through to being an abstraction of imagined conversations. Its purpose in my work is to initiate contemplation.

For this series of prints, I was reminiscing about road trips through farmland with the patterns in the paddocks and the rolls of hay just sitting there, settling into the ground waiting to be moved on. This made me think about the many ways in which we as humans settle – we settle on ideas, we settle for things in life, we settle in conversations, settle in for the long haul and we strive to settle in a physical space – the list goes on. We equate settling with success because it underpins a resolution, and our desire for a final state.

We are told in so many ways that settling can be contentment. But in reality do we settle or is this really a continual contemplation and desire, hence the circles."

Paula McLoughlin, September 2019