Soxy Fleming

Artist Statement

There are too many wonderful ways to create for me to choose just one. Alternative analogue photography, painting, mixed media, collage, object construction/sculpture and book art are just a few ways in which I express my creative need.

When travelling away from home I take the opportunity to record the journey through pinhole photography, using a camera made from a tin, paper negatives and, eventually, when the journey is over, alternative chemistry to develop the images. The whole process is the complete reverse of today's instant digital photographic recording and is particularly suitable for architectural subjects. Near Ararat Hospital received an Award for Merit and the People's Choice Award at the Myrtle St Studio competition in 2011.

In the home-studio working environment I work on acrylic and collage pieces using aged print materials as a seed or starter. The subject emerges as the shapes in paint around the collage piece are formed. This process has yielded animals and characters of a mythological and archetypal nature. Stories link the characters, with poetry following, the pieces coming together in book form.

Working in 3 dimensional object making and book art gives me the opportunity to re-interpret existing objects and place them in a new context in the physical world. With the construction of the small cloth and wire figure Dolly a new life was created. Her adventures are the subject of an ongoing series of photographs. Corgi is a 3 dimensional piece of wall art in which a character leaves a book and heads out into the world. German Toast was the 2009 winner of the Blarney Biblio-art competition, Port Fairy.

This creativity and creative output gives me the opportunity to explore and spill whatever is lying below the surface of my everyday life through the medium of the quickly produced spontaneous elements. It also incorporates complex problem solving in the construction pieces which may be formulated and formed over a period of weeks. In both styles of work I find immense satisfaction at having brought forth something new into the world and, hopefully, find something more of myself.

Art Forms