Downstairs

27 July – 8 August

'MASQUERADING IDENTITIES' - Sarah Coveney

Sarah Coveney uses multi-media that is recycled and repurposed from everyday life and secondhand stores, collecting mainly women's shoes to discuss femininity.  Sarah has a Bachelor of Visual Arts from A.U.T (1997).  She's won the Ida Eise Portrait Award, Auckland Society of Arts. (1997) within the Group Carte Blanche, who were Artist's in Residence For Redcliffe High School, Queensland.

Sarah says, "My art originates from feminine rituals that I do not want to perform, however, I am still drawn to as they have always held my gaze. Here, I am searching for a discarded identity that I lost while trying to fit into the world. To do so, I now collect second hand femininity and recycled possibilities to 'try on'.  These works are logos exploring those identities and inner battles I have, to become what I needed to be for the performance, of that masquerade, femininity.

Shoes tell us about ourselves, who we wish to be, where we come from and where we are going. They connect all versions of ourselves that we show and how we navigate our lives.

Heel to heel, and biological in their performance, these works are symbolic portraits of how we juggle societal expectations through those rituals. Iconic identities accepted, or not. More than just footwear, they become now an advert of all of an obsession. I am all of them and none of them at the same time, but this is my 'masking wardrobe', the exploration for the lost, the found, hidden and shared, trying on masks to find the right fit. Experimenting with the masquerading identities so I do not have to perform myself."