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MICHELLE SLARKE |
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b. 1963 Lake Grace, Western Australia STATEMENT Michelle Slarke spent her formative years growing up on a farm at Lake Grace in the south eastern wheatbelt of Western Australia. She graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from Curtin University of Technology in 1992. Much of Slarke’s work has an autobiographical element, and is largely informed by site specificity and the utilisation of text. In Skirting, for the 2002 Country Arts Boundless exhibition, Michelle stencilled five wool bales, and the floor and walls of the Art Gallery of Western Australia with a personal narrative that explored the urban/rural divide and the connections between spatial inheritance and place. In 1999, Slarke returned to live and work in Lake Grace. She could see how sparse the trees had become, the thinning ‘shade lines’ and ‘shade patches’, solo salmon gums and the roadside trees that cannot replace themselves. How precious the diverse and unique ecosytems we call ‘mallee’, ‘tea trees’, ‘gum trees, the ‘bush’ and the ‘scrub’. And she could see how far removed she was from the decision making about that ‘bush’, and her not even knowing the names of the plants ‘cleared’ for wheat and sheep, and cut for fence posts. SOLO EXHIBITIONS
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
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