laramarieartist

Lara-Marie Wilkinson is a multimedia artist working to find clarity and catharsis in the midst of persisting pain. She moulds her pain to create works that respond to historical and contemporary, personal and collective, physical and emotional pain. She aims to manifest a holistic rendering of suffering in the hope of fostering community and understanding.

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some recent abject collages, a work in progress

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installation images of my video work for What Did They Tell You in Alexandria Sydney, a show about chronic illness and medical misogyny

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some colour coded art prints I’ve been working on

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Sample of a series of animations I've been working on, using my own images. Everything relates to my chronic pain, to my body being taken over by disease. For years my body has been growing something it should not, a useless new organ that bleeds + eats + destroys, but it also creates, and as much as it takes from me, it also fuels me...

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some still images from a finished animation and a current wip

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a little animation experiment using my images + sounds I recorded in Sydney, more to come

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Small selection of images from my 2023 solo show 'pain in birth, trouble with earth'

all images owned by me, please do not replicate

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+ some new images

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+ some even newer images of yet another dropped tail. These feel explicit, well l suppose a discarded tail is always explicit but these photos especially, I feel a little like Vaughan, taking pictures of car crash victims from afar for my own gain, crouching in the tall grass, unseen, unheard, the tail wholly unaffected by my presence, dying, bloodied, having just experienced the ultimate release

The blurring of inside and out, the basis of taboo, to break down the barrier, to expose oneself fully to the world... I'm dropping my tail, or something to that effect

and a poem I read almost a year ago at the opening of my solo show titled Lizard People and Long Digestion;

I wear a pot on my head as a hat

Disguising myself as your succulent meal

I’m like a tonic

If you ate me I know you’d heal

I’ve worked on myself, I’m tender and plump

Covered in a crisp crumb of zesty zeal

You’ll travel through wild hills and winding trees with me in you

Happy to let me feel

We’re shedding

We’re shedding

We’re shedding

The false skin we no longer use

A banquet, gifted from our own two bodies

We glean its nutrients

We’re just two faces

Staring back at each other with no expression

None

At all

A brown leaf blowing in the wind

Two animals lying amongst the elements, skinned

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Sanguine Convalescence 2022

video projection, sound, human hair, wood, SCOBY's (self contained organism of bacteria and yeast), dates, textile

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sonance seance (lamb, yellow, slope, groan, spin, howl, scream, joy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy), 2021

analogue sound work composed with sounds taken from Old Hollywood films

sonance - sound, the far-off mellow sonance of a cowbell: Edna Ferber seance - regression into another age, another life, another non-life, out of time, out of place, with death lamb - sacrificial, sacred, helpless yellow - enlightenment, sun slope - from vargas, plural of varga, meaning hut, steep, slope, fence groan - grief and pleasure spin - to turn and turn and turn, to move in a circular motion howl - a long cry, I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked: Allen Ginsberg scream - long loud cry, expressing extreme emotion, carnal pain joy - from the latin gaudium, to rejoice   holy - health, to be whole or intact, to be sacred, everyone, everything

my work is a connection to times past, immortalised in film my work is a portal to introspection   my work is an encompassing paradox, parodied in black + white my work is a pure expression of creation   my work is not hindered by capital, capital, capital my work exists in a bubble, and is ready to pop at any time

Complete sound work: https://soundcloud.com/user-929308051/sound-seance-lamb-yellow-slope-groan-spin-howl-scream-joy?si=3b06d7512a074f86be1627770988d03b&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

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this is a photo series I’ve been working on for more than a year now, and I intend to continue adding to this intriguing collection for years to come

each of these photos were recently shown at the Powerhouse Late show Amanda Williams curated

the positives + negatives are displayed here because my intention with these images had always been to print them large scale in the dark room. I’ve printed a few so far, and there are about 30 images in the full collection. more to come!

all rights to these images are claimed by the artist Lara-Marie Wilkinson

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video for my poem titled ‘What’s It Like To Be a Cherry Pie?’, 2021

Dozens of tears entwined with the most genuine, intense joy

You take me to the farmers market

And in my euphoric state

Olfactory overwhelmed by the smell of sweet and dirt

Trade me

Pop me open with your top front teeth

And empty my contents onto the concrete

Rub me, with your boot, into the dirt

Others with trample over me

And I will welcome it

With a heart as open as the jar that housed me

Tiny arms that rise up from the earth

Tell people how happy I am to go home with them

My generosity spread out

Embedded in the soles of their shoes

Oh

I love you

I love you

I love you

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person/personne/personne, 2021

Textiles (canvas, calico, synthetic materials, yarn)

This artwork is an alternate vessel for my consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness to inhabit, in which I invite the audience to step inside of me, to explore me in all my complexity, in all my desperate sadness, in all my euphoric joy. person/personne/personne is a series of soft sculptures, three made with canvas and calico with both my own ovaries and lips printed on them, and one wearable sculpture for the audience to try on (it feels like a warm hug!). I place everything that I am, right in front of you, for you to interpret. I encourage the audience to take what they want from this artwork, and leave what they don’t - just as we do when we interact with people, we never see the whole picture, we cling onto what we like and what we see. In the title I use both the English and French definition of the word person, hence the two spellings; person in English obviously meaning an individual human, and personne in French which simultaneously means everyone and no one. 

The soundscape I created to be played in conjunction with my soft sculptures is a combination of sound bites from films that influence me, slowed down, and also readings from my personal journal, and poems I’ve written, whispered and layered over one another. I enjoy viewing all art as its own living being, with its own free will and life force, and that is what I have created with my artwork person/personne/ personne. 

The poem I wrote about this work, also titled person/personne/ personne: 

Scream out! 

Shout! 

Love is what it’s about! 

Love and time 

And the joy of growing wise 

And growing old 

And the joy of having a body 

Of having a vessel 

The joy of a thought and the joy of a singular new freckle 

The small things in life 

All tied up nicely in a sweet messy package 

For you to receive 

For you to receive 

For you to receive 

So take it! 

if you want 

But use it! 

or not 

It’s in your hands now 

Enter me! 

and stay a while if you’d like 

I’ll be here 

It’s nice here 

It’s warm here 

It’s fuchsia pink here 

All are welcome 

And all are here 

All are love and all are near 

In perfect completeness 

A hit of sadness 

In all our complexity 

I’m on my knees 

With all our consciousness 

Inside myself 

Thank you for being here 

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Untitled (Installation One), 2021

VHS to digital video, plaster of Paris, yarn 6min 25s 

This installation is an exploration of my Mauritian-ness, or lack there of, and is a visual representation of my attempt over the past two months of making to apply a living flesh back onto myself, a living culture, to reanimate myself by connecting with my own culture which seems so far removed from myself. I investigated the cliché of the dodo bird and its role as an enduring symbol of extinction and loss, and represented it in a way that wasn’t so banal, by becoming the bone itself and creating an installation from its perspective. This artwork is incredibly personal and was something that for me, as a disabled woman, was as physically challenging to make as it was emotionally taxing, but therein lies part of its success; the creation of this artwork, the journey and conscious search to reconnect with all aspects of my culture was truly laborious, painful and confronting for me. I forced myself to face my lack of cultural knowledge daily in an attempt to build it up again, and through this challenge charged my artwork emotionally and culturally. My installation includes sculptural, video, text and sound elements, with the video projected through and interrupted by a sea of fragile hanging plaster bones bound by a soft suffocating twine. Together these components create an immersive fantastical tale of my Mauritian culture, of stories about buried pirate treasure and mythologised flightless birds, for the audience to enter into, and in turn become part of. 

           Poem

Fossilised specimens, Raphus cucullatus, Dodo

Contrary to what you may believe of me

 I am not a dying Dodo bird 

what I am is a naked

parched

brittle and breaking 

Dodo bird bone

No flesh, only the hope of it, but my faith is waining

Did you think I was still alive?

Did you think maybe I was still rotting?

Was it possible that an unctuous piece of flesh was still left?

I’m sorry to disappoint but I died long before I knew you

no flesh to glean from my bones 

But there is always the possibility of reanimation

if I could just figure out how

But how could I?

For I am a dodo bird bone

And when I am being held to her chest

Arms around me

The rhythm of her heart, her breath, and the vibration of her voice

I know that I am a bone

in your arms

and at home

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‘Call Me a Peppercorn’ 2021