Karryn Argus
My interdisciplinary creative practice entails working across textile, sculpture, performance and photography. Shifting between figuration and abstraction, my work places feminist methodologies around feeling and listening at the centre of my creative process. I am interested in the body as a mediator between internal emotional states and external expression, exploring how wearable objects, portraiture and soft sculptures can become their agents.
I hold a Bachelor of Fine Art (First Class Honours) from Monash University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences (Honours) from La Trobe University. I learned my craft-based skills from my mother, Marion Waters, and my grandmothers, Eileen Argus and Mary Dalton.
My Masters project, Holding the Space, explores emotions resulting from being estranged from a loved one. Wearable objects were made, worn, ‘performed’ and documented to explore loss, shame and longing using self-portrait photography. Performance #1–#3 investigates shame through the covering and revealing of the head with a hand-held stitched mask. Cast Off explores the impact of estrangement on one’s sense of self through the unravelling and re-knitting of a balaclava. Sit In, In Your Place and Longing Takes Over #1–#6 use empty bags to suggest physical absence and investigate how grief and longing can be conveyed through the performance and materiality of these objects.
Performance #1- #3, 2020
Lambda digital c-type print
250mm x 250mm x 30mm
Cast Off, 2020
Lambda digital c-type print mounted on dibond
900mm x 600mm x 20mm
In Your Place, 2020
Lambda digital c-type print
450mm x 600mm x 30mm
Sit In, 2020
Lambda digital c-type print
500mm x 600mm x 30mm
Longing Takes Over # 5, 2020
Lambda digital c-type print
600mm x 600mm x 30mm
Longing Takes Over # 6, 2020
Lambda digital c-type print
600mm x 600mm x 30mm
