Bottled Up

Bottled Up is a series of work that explores the social preference to bottle up emotions, by reflecting on my father’s own way of being in the world, through his carafe as an object of still life.

At the end of 2023, I set out to create my first real body of work. Until then, I had produced random artworks—still lifes, self-portraits and other figures, that stood on their own or weren’t part of a bigger theme. This carafe was the only object at that time I could imagine painting so many of. It’s a homage to my dad, who was a bottled-up kind of guy, and it’s also a comment on how we bottle things up as a culture.

Seemingly a trivial object, this carafe sat in the fridge door of my childhood home holding my dad's wine. It's now in my fridge, filled with water. Dad didn't reveal much of his inner life to me or anyone else. When conversation at the dinner table went below the surface, he’d go off and do the dishes.

He was Catholic, but couldn’t explain his belief except to say that he was raised that way; he loved the Balmain Tigers; he was athletic—he had a stint playing AFL, windsurfed, golfed, played water polo, and regularly swam in the harbour baths. We reckoned he was lucky—often winning meat trays at the raffle; he was a great story teller; and was kind to animals. He also bottled up emotions and kept his thoughts to himself. He only became more direct in the evenings when he'd had a few glasses of wine and his defences relaxed. 

As my own kids got older, I realised the hard truth—that we can never truly know the entirety of someone, even those closest to us. In spite of that,  we frequently see them and ourselves in the trivial everyday objects they leave behind when they’ve gone.

Is it all Below the Surface, 2025. Acrylic and Oils on canvas. 49.5cm x 79.5cm.

These paintings culminated in one of the two largest paintings, Is it all Below the Surface, really coming to fully represent all the layers of intention in this body of work. Beyond a reconnection with my dad, and the metaphor bottles (and even alcohol) give us for protecting ourselves from our own emotions, this work is an invitation to the viewer to slow down and reflect. There’s a stillness; a presence; and clarity that’s captured with the carafe and the glass. If we quiet down enough and let the emotions happen, we can see moments of depth in the ordinary things that become a part of our lasting memory.

Baggage claim

Baggage, 2023. Mixed media on canvas. 32 x 32 inches.

I started this painting as I often do, these days; with a layer of free writing with the brush. It’s a good way to fill the canvas with what I intend to convey. Getting all the literal meaning and the superficial thoughts out of my head. Clearing away the baggage to make way for something deeper and more symbolic. My intention from the beginning was to do a still life painting of this little suitcase but I didn’t yet know what the composition would be.

When I moved out of home, my parents cleared out their shed and gave me all the years of school stuff and hobbies and toys that they’d been hanging onto. This little Globite school case from when I was in kindergarten is one of the few things that survived multiple culling efforts over several house moves.

I was cleaning out my teenage son’s bedroom, sorting out the too-small clothes and toys for the op shop, when I found this bag again. It had walkie talkies and Nerf bullets in it. It survived another round of things being chucked out and given away, and I took it to my art studio.

Last year, as an extension to the couples therapy sessions, I had a number of individual sessions with a psychologist. She blew the dust off this school case and dared me to look inside. We all bring something of our childhood into adulthood—the way we see life; the ways we react to it. There’s some nature and some nurture, and until things went wrong enough in my adult life, I didn’t think this bag had anything in it worth examining. There are no scary stories or skeletons in this one; just a child’s experiences of emotions that informed patterns in my own behaviour as I made my way through life.

It’s confronting to open this baggage under the spotlight. You learn how much of your own power you gave away and for how long. You realise how many choices you’ve made in life were driven by childhood fears and shame. You wonder about the patterns your own parenting has created for your kids. How will their fears show up in their adult life? How heavy will their baggage be? I’ve done my best with what I knew, as did my own parents. All I can do now is remind my kids to have the courage to look inside their own bags and jettison what’s not useful.

This artwork was painted in acrylic and has been overlaid with oils and cold wax medium. I wanted to preserve the layers with the transparency of the wax medium. We are all composed of many layers with our baggage showing through each and every one.

Abstract Emotions

I’m the sort of person who is very much in her head. The past year has been about learning how to not do so much of that. Reconnecting to the body and recognising how emotions manifest as physical sensations.

Negative emotion has always been something I avoided. Shouting was scary to me and I lacked experience of people sharing vulnerabilities, and going through conflict and repair. In our society young girls and women are often criticised for showing anger. So I spent half my life in a relationship where I feared anger and criticism, and repressed my own, even when it was appropriate and needed. In becoming small, I betrayed myself, and that grew into resentment. And, in numbing the bad, I also numbed the good.

All emotions had become abstract to me

For this series of work I wanted to throw my whole body into it. I hung unstretched canvases side by side on the wall and felt my way around. I threw paint at the wall and I spread out on the floor. I called the emotions of the past year back to my mind and body. I painted in pairs to explore the contradictions in myself and in my relationship. When they dried, I stretched them myself

Self-reflection (2022) and Self-delusion (2022)

Self-reflection is the greens and blues in my own eyes. It’s the act of truly seeing your behaviours and beliefs in the mirror and objectively coming to grips with the good and the mistakes.

Self-delusion is the rose-coloured glasses. All the things we want to believe about ourselves but they’re not really true, and if someone were to scratch the surface you’d see it, too.

Self-betrayal (2023) and Self-love (2023)

Self-betrayal is the hiding in the shadows, the heat of frustration and repressed anger, and a love that’s frozen over from self-neglect. I’ve betrayed myself many times over.

Self-love is what lies underneath all that pain. It’s what’s there when you scrape away the layers of dirt and dust to find the sparkling masterpiece within. It’s the real you; it’s blossoming hope; a new day; Spring again.

Avoidant (2023) and Limerent (2023)

The distance between an Avoidant and a Limerent is a gulf. One wants space and autonomy, the other wants to be enmeshed, consumed by longing for what seems dazzling. In their fight for survival, each destroys the other.

All 6 artworks are acrylics on stretched canvas, 50cm x 80cm, and currently unframed.

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