Imogen Kerr
(she/her)
Lives, works and creates between Kabi Kabi (Gabi Gabi) and Jinibara land (Sunshine Coast) as well as Naarm (Melbourne).
Interviewed by Joella Marcus
Imogen Kerr’s expanded painting practice explores the entanglement of the human and the ecological to create imagined possibilities in response to the climate crisis. Her works however can not be classified as purely ecological. By incorporating natural processes and disrupting material hierarchy, the artist attempts to acknowledge the trifecta of colonisation, capitalism and patriarchy on the plundering of the earth. As a woman living on the stolen lands, Kerr acknowledges that whilst her love and care for ecology immensely inspires her work, her connection to place is superficial to that of First Nation’s people whose environmental care and connection to place has been nurtured and developed over thousands of years.
How would you describe your practice as an artist and what led you down the ecological route to create works in response to the climate crisis?
It all started with painting feeling right. I tried oils and acrylics, but they felt so harsh and toxic, so I gave watercolour a go and fell in love with it. Especially how chance comes into play; if you make a mark, that's it, you can't get rid of it or cover it up. Through the various lockdowns, I decided to get to the foundation of the medium by learning how to make watercolour paint. Then I made my own brushes and clicked with the gestured strokes that were made by them. The horsehair brushes came about as horses have been a part of my family for generations and are a passion of mine. The horses at home needed their tails trimmed, so in a symbiotic way, they have become a part of my practice. I intend for my various processes to demonstrate care for the environment as I've been very much wired that way since day dot.
Was it an external influence and building pressure of the climate crisis or a continuation of design practices you were already familiar with? Is there anything you hope to achieve in your art in response to the climate crisis?
A bit of both, in all honesty. The amount of climate information at my fingertips, coupled with the magnitude and frequency of bushfires and floods experienced in Australia and abroad, have led to an even greater urgency for me to create with natural processes. In my work, I hope to look deeper at the intricacies of it - what's happened in the past, what's happening in the present, and holding hope for the future.
What works give an exemplar of how you address colonisation, capitalism and patriarchy? How is that evident in your work and practice?
I like to use forgotten places for image construction to communicate and acknowledge the histories, particularly concerning colonisation. I use the edges of the canvas, the structural support that is often hidden and painted over, to bring these issues to light. I use materials such as ground heritage brick or written word about particular things I saw, witnessed, and heard about in Vanuatu - where my father’s side of the family settled after WW2.
In reflecting on the influence of the patriarchy in plundering the earth, I gravitate toward creating innately feminine pieces that work with nature instead of dominating it. I try to embody an anti-capitalistic ethos through a sense of considered resourcefulness by crafting my tools and mediums and refraining from taking too much.
When you say forgotten places, what is an example of that?
Forgotten places, I mean more so in museum or gallery settings as canvases are usually an image presented front facing with everything else kept neat and tidy. I want people to try and peer over or look under for all those hard bits to find by exposing the other sides and getting audiences to interact with the edge, the underneath.
Your work has a deep connection to people and place, both through materiality and expression, what would you like others to get out of works that are so personal to you?
The use of heritage red brick came from observing my environment in Kooyong(Richmond, Victoria) as I was looking at how colonisers initially built upon the wild environment and heritage red brick was one of the primary building tools at the time. Grinding up the red brick was done so that I could incorporate an acknowledgement of place, melting it down to its core impact of building upon the land. People beyond that context can connect with those artworks by listening, looking and observing what is around in the communities that they are in and be critical of that by thinking where am I? What is this particular place? What was it? At the moment I am currently on farm land that was once wetland so I am being critical of where we are, where we all are.
Nowadays, it is so much about returning to the local and understanding where you are in terms of place and that sensitivity to your environment. What hopes do you have for the art world in responding to the climate crisis as this is a message central to your work.
I hope my work opens up conversations around subtle actions of care and letting the natural world in. This is something that needs to be addressed by art institutions as well as non-art institutions at large.
I also hope to see more and more artists entering this conversation. I'm excited by the environmental dialogue shown by the work of artists such as John Wolseley, Vivien Suter who is in the Guatemalan Jungle and Jahnne Pasco-White.
Where do you see your practice developing to?
I am doing my masters next year and want to get deeper into my work while being fostered by academics. I am currently chasing my interests, which at the moment is poetry. I have been looking at Scottish Nature writing and how that's used to convey the complexities of the Scottish wilderness, the clearances and the politically influenced ecological environment. Using poetry, not as a written thing for presentation, but more as a meditative way of formalising my thoughts; chanting these poems as I am painting and seeing where that takes me. I’ve also done some experimental sculpture making. I am a huge fan of Patricia Piccinini as I am interested in post-human and transhuman philosophies and seeing where sculpture can take me in this space.
You were saying you are chanting these poems, it such an interesting way to see how these poems will translate onto the canvas and with that sculpture would you ever consider doing a crossover between sculpture and canvas for a more tactile artwork?
Yeah, I was even thinking of silks, which is a fairly complex material, even just the sourcing of it. I love textiles and the skill involved - it would be interesting to experiment over the next two years of my masters and see where it takes me.
Are there any works in particular you wanted to speak to or anything about your practice? Or how you want others to view your work?
I love incorporating rain - I do a bit of a dance with it and the canvas as watercolour allows itself to be manipulated by rain. I have been doing a lot of nature printing with river rocks, native plant matter and introduced species to represent that interesting yet toxic entanglement of what constitutes the natural world. I recently found a snakeskin on my parent’s farm so I am printing with that; it is kind of a papery consistency and very beautiful. But at the same time it represents something quite ominous. I love watercolour and I don’t think I’ll ever deviate from that - I’ve found it, and I am running with it for now.
