Corridors is an online artist in residency by Regional Victorian artist Tammy Honey which will document an investigation over a three months period that recontextuaises memories of her time spent as an art student in Perth during the mid 1990s and responds through video and painting.

WEEK 1

In my residency, I will be focusing on creating a body of work that explores revisiting my memories of time spent in Western Australia during the mid-1990s. Week 1 was spent looking back through journals and projects that I created during this time. I was also lucky to reconnect with friends from art school, reminding me of the wonderful times we had there. We didn’t take a lot of photos back then although I wish I had. Then I started to look at maps to remind me of the locations and events that I experienced, which made me decide how to start my investigation. This week, I’ll work out my colour collection for the new series, which is the first stage to create a moment in time and daydream with the colours.

WEEK 2

Having a lot of fun working out my colour palette as I think about the buildings, land, sea and the people I spent time with in WA. There’s wonderful memories of outfits I wish I still had and the time I spend in Fremantle as it was the first place I explored by myself. My first leap to walk my path and survive. ‘Old papas’ become a favourite and regular haunt, most weekends I would be sitting at a table drinking coffee as I was drawing and writing my thoughts for the day. My second was the Fremantle Markets, watching the buskers and roaming the markets. When I could afford it, I would treat myself to a crepe from a little French crape shop. I love how busy this little shop was; people would line up to get their favourite combo of crepe. I was lucky effort to spend time at FAC going to events and had a friend who had done workshops there. While she was doing the workshops I would spend time sitting and exploring the buildings.

WEEK 3

This week I explored maps and have been making digital images to be created as paintings and video art. I feel this will sit well with the colour field paintings that I want to create. I am starting to realise had much of the artwork to come will be more abundant than I first thought of, which is a wonderful place to be. So here are the digital works for this week. I think I will start working on some small colour field paintings for Week 4.

WEEK 4

Week 4 has been interesting as I’m now exploring colour field studies to get ready for the large works in progress for my residency. The pace has been slow as I find a new rhythm with the new collection of colours. I struggled with adding red to my colour palette as it’s not one of my favourite colours. I’ll have to think about how I’m going to proceed with that colour if at all. As I move into week 5, I’ll finish the studies and dive into my first map painting.

Week 5

Loving the flow of this week as I complete the colour field studies and make a start on the first map painting. Enjoying the new development with this painting as it is an idea I have been thinking about for a good twenty years but never had a reason or time to explore it until now. I love how ideas can sit with you for years, popping in and out of thought as you imagine how you would translate it into a resolved series of artwork. One of the many enjoyments of a creative mind, so many ideas, and only money and time stand in the way to complete them all. 

Week 6

How time flies when you’re having fun. I just love the feeling of being totally devoted to a body of work, as you develop the work and get further into the conversation. You can see the direction clearly in your mind. The map painting is coming along nicely and I hope to start work on a couple more map paintings. I also completed colour field painting so things are moving ahead quite well.

Week 7

My residency is coming along nicely and have completed another colour field painting plus one of the map paintings. The colour palette has moved from bright muted colours which reminded me of lipstick colours, clothes, and building exteriors. To a softer pastel palette that reflects the memories of house interiors that were popular during the 90s, especially curtains, lounges, the bed linen of hotels and suburban homes.  

I’m starting to work on some new video art and look forward to seeing what evolves from this body of work. I also discovered that my favourite cafe Old Papa’s had closed but it still lives on in Google heaven.

Week 8

How did it get to week 8 so fast? I’ve been powering along with my residency and as I finish more paintings. I’m happy with how the map paintings are coming along and feel that it’s the start of a long investigation of maps which has lead me to focus more on the video art side of this body of work. I’m aiming for this part to be finished around the last two weeks of my residency.

To my surprise, I found another box of art journals and some old documentation of projects from art school and saw embryonic ideas of my Colour Field paintings that I had no memory of when I started creating the paintings. This has made me start revisiting old art journals to see what ideas I could pick up again. For me, the only thing that slows me down in creating bodies of work are money, technology, space and time. 

Week 9

What a busy week in the studio as I have resolved how the paintings, video, digital images, NFT art and soundtrack all work and oscillate with each other. A few of the paintings have had some gold leaf introduced to them and to my surprise it has added a beautiful layer. 

At the same time, I have been busy with the video art working on 19 pieces at the moment to make into one large work which will run for 96 minutes.

This week I have realised that the body of work will be called 96 and want to make a follow up 95 series. It has been a week of clarity and light bulb moments which has lead me to a body of work which will go for years. I’m enjoying how the time restriction of this residency is making me focus and resolve my project. Even when my time has finished I will refine this collection to create a beautiful installation. What a week and can’t wait to see how much I will get through in the up and coming weeks.

Week 10

What a week, the countdown is on 

I have entered the NFT world with a series created especially for my FAC residency. As I’m new to the NFT space, it’s taken quite a bit of background research to understand how and where I should start. The more I get into this, I’ve come to an understand that NFTs could be amazing for the art world. On a pure and simple level, it gives art an ID code like an ISBN number that tracks who made it, who sold it, who bought it, the base financial value, the growth value of the artwork as it is sold and royalties go to the artist. It’s so important that artists start to receive royalties from their work once traded, especially highlighting now that artists are the last creatives in the field who do not receive royalties, which needs to be addressed.

I also like the idea of history within the metadata of the NFT. For example, car companies, fashion designers, the sports world are starting to create products with NFTs build into them. There is a lively discussion about this new world and I could write more but let’s get back to the work I created this week.

This collection of NFT artworks is inspired by my memories of mid 90s video game arcade aesthetics harking back to my art school days in Perth and Fremantle in 1996 corresponding to the name of my collection artworks ’96’. They play out 8-bit nostalgia through colour field patterns and data anomalies that inform my practice through memory and the subject.

Week 11

Not long to go now…

I’ve been working on my next round of NFT art and this series is made up of 19 moving images of Fremantle, inspired by my memories from the time I spent there. I’ve also been focusing on the video art side of my residency this week. At first, I thought I would create a 96-minute artwork but now have created a 1996 second, a two-channel video installation which I’m hoping to physically exhibit at Fremantle Art Centre.

My process to create this body of work is layered, which oscillates back and forth between painting and digital. I start by first, drawing on colour from my memories, photos and maps. I then create digital images based on this process which then moves onto painting colour field and map paintings. After these paintings are finished, I convert interpretations back into digital as a second-handed iteration, and once this is done, I make the digital stills into moving images and then make sound work for the videos.

Week 12

My time is almost finished with my residency and what a wonderful experience it has been.

This week, I have focused on my video art by refining the first edit from the last couple of weeks and will spend the following week doing the same thing. I have also been working on a couple of map paintings again and am finding that the overall body of work since week 1 is drawing to a conclusion.

Week 13

What a fantastic three months it has been at FAC with my artist in residency. I didn’t realise how much I would gain from this experience, so thank you Bevan, Andrea, and Ros for this beautiful time, and look forward to coming over to meet you all soon.

This has truly changed and helped me to work out how to move forward with my practice. I now have the begins of a full body of work and will keep working on past this residency. Moving forward I now have two strong styles in colour fields and abstract fields which oscillates back and forth between painting and digital. In time, I will work in my collage practice with these styles and explore how to do so. Plus when I come over next year I’ll start a new investigation through memory and place by creating works on paper and digital with collage as I spent time in Fremantle, which I am sure will be another wonderful experience.

Moving forward from this residency I will be creating a book and experimental feature film with this new body of work. If you would like to keep up to date with my practice here are my website and Instagram links. I have added a virtual gallery of paintings and prints from my residency that runs until June 14.

Bye-bye for now and thank you all for being a part of my artist in residency journey with Fremantle Art Centre.

https://www.tammyhoney.com

https://www.instagram.com/tammy_honey_