The forgotten (post-viral selfie)
Michelle Vine
- Sitter: Michelle Vine
- Medium: Photograph
- Dimensions: 34cm x 45cm
- Representation: This artist represents themselves
2024 Sylvia Jones Prize for Women Artists
Proudly supported by
Clem Jones Foundation
About the artwork
This photograph is a self-portrait created in a quiet moment when the artist was at the Mater Emergency Department. It explores the experiences of those left behind in the aftermath of the pandemic, high risk and invisible.
The image expands ideas of contemporary self-portraiture. Instead of the artist being the central focus, we see the view down the corridor as she sits, contemplating a quiet moment. It gives us insights into the experience and loneliness of living with health challenges and disability. The empty corridor reinforces the overwhelming feeling of isolation.
At first the image does not seem to contain a likeness of the artist but looking closer, we see her in the mirror, dressed in a white gown. This can be seen as play on Jan van Eyck and the Arnolfini Portrait, where the mirror reflects the subjects.
Michelle Vine’s practice is informed by her lived experiences of mental health, disability, chronic illness, and queerness. Her sculptural works focus on touch and human responsiveness to it “…whilst disrupting sight’s dominance of the art experience.”
About the artist
Michelle Vine is an installation, performance and photo media artist, academic and arts leader. She lectures at the QCAD, Griffith Univerrsity, is Deputy Chair of NAVA (National Association of Visual Artists) and the Founder and Director of Here Space, an artists space in Woolloongabba.
She is a passionate advocate for artists’ wellbeing and disability inclusion in the arts. Career highlights include Play Moves at the Museum of Brisbane, Curiosity for the World Science Festival, Soft Touch at Caboolture Regional Gallery, Drawn Thread: 50 years of Australian Feminist Textiles at Artisan, and Touch and Tactility in Art at Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St Louis, USA.
Judge's Notes
This work is a psychological portrait. It’s both a self-portrait and a portrait of all of us, and will speak to every person who’s ever been in a hospital or been with someone they love in a hospital. It’s beautifully composed and speaks very much to our times, particularly post-COVID. I also love that she’s made a beautiful object in the anti-aesthetic and charged place of an ‘almost’ empty hospital corridor. And if you look at the detail, the way the light is hitting the floor, her reflection in the little hallway mirrors, to the dirty stains out of the air conditioning unit. There’s just so much in this work that draws out the very personal and intense experiences that occur in hospitals.
