Catharsis With Frida Continues
Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has one of the best gallery gift shops. I saw this fantastic jigsaw puzzle of Friday Kahlo in [...]
Buy a Leunig – I’m Donating Profits to Pain Revolution
I’m sure you’ll all agree my advocacy for chronic pain has been extensive in my 13-year lived experience. I’ve learned a lot about who to trust, who I should collaborate with and [...]
Mark of hope?
Queenscliff Gallery & Workshop (QG&W) organised the Lettered print exchange. A Print Exchange is when artists submit works to a set theme and they exchange each other’s work, each artist keeping a [...]
I made a gallery
True! Theo and I made a huge life move as many of you have read. Our transition began over a year ago when we escaped to Tasmania to figure out how to [...]
Intermission, my solo exhibition in Hobart
It’s my PN anniversary, eight years (if I don’t subtract the 4.5 years it took me to find out it was in fact PN)! Obviously time brings on reflection which in turn [...]
Permission granted and now it’s back to reality!
Permission granted and now it's back to reality! Or is it possible I never really left my reality? As if anyone can leave chronic pain behind and really have time off! I'm going to post my brain's two conflicting versions: 1. Crap thinking out-of-the-way first version..
Signing off for 2014 under an Olsen sun at MONA
Or should I say, looking forward to 2015? Looking forward is more my tune but the changeover of another year, especially with chronic pain, calls me to reflect and to ponder my [...]
Semi Finalist for the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize 2014
Very chuffed to be selected as a semi finalist regardless of the outcome. The portrait was flown up to Sydney for a second round of judging. She didn't make the final cut of 30 finalists but I feel so content that Ms Soula is going to great lengths to create awareness for invisible pain.
Cathartic collage, my self portraits for sale
Collage has been a little more therapeutic for me than my usual art forms. I think it must have been finding a technique that I could manage and one that didn't add to the fatigue and pain. Cutting small pieces of paper and glueing, drawing, attaching was just so light and easy. The painting of small pieces of paper and the careful ripping and tearing was like rocking. So gentle, so calming and at the same time feeling like I was handling my pain, expressing it and getting it out of my body and onto the art piece. ... Contact me if you want to purchase my artwork, these are the original pieces, no printouts will be sold. Paypal or Direct deposit available. Will post safely and securely free within Australia (plus postage outside of Australia).
Visual Pursuits book review on Art & Chronic Pain – A Self Portrait
In Art and Chronic Pain – A Self Portrait, artist Soula Mantalvanos shares her experience with chronic pain, which has been a debilitating presence in her life for almost seven years. Soula suffers from Pudendal Neuralgia, a painful nerve condition that developed following an accident where a fit ball that she was sitting on burst, causing her to drop violently to the concrete floor beneath. Early on in the book Soula describes that split-second, and the devastating effects that followed. A highly active yoga-loving woman before the accident, throughout the book Soula gives a deeply personal account of the psychological, emotional and physical impacts of living with chronic pain for so many years. These negative effects were compounded by the fact that her condition Pudendal Neuralgia baffled her doctors, and took four and a half years to even diagnose.