Sarah Woodward

Your work, Empire of the Light: Lorraine, brings an intriguing blend of the uncanny and the serene.

Thank you, yes, I do like to make works that initially feel calm and inviting, something you want to be in, be a part of. To keep looking at. But then there is the underlying sense of something that’s not quite right. That is the Freudian uncanny. The knowledge that you know and understand this image, this place or this world. But you don’t, it’s not quite right. Something is slightly unheimlich, unhomely

There seems to be an attraction to dualities and contradictions What drives this exploration

I understand where you see it as a notion of dualities, contradictions. Actually, I am exploring the idea that in most things, it’s not two adversarial opposing forces, dualities, or binaries. As humans we are all the same, in that we are the same species, but the range of possibilities within that makes us individual, and that is beautiful. We are not a contradiction of black and white, but a field of greys, and a rainbow of subtle colour, subtle shades of difference. I want you to stop and think about what you seeing, it’s not just right or wrong.

What attracts you to a place? This place seem to be marked by both beauty and trauma?”

There’s definitely something about places, my work always comes back to space and place There are certain places that I truly hate, not because they are bad, but because bad things happened to me there. One place, I was mugged when I was 19. A lovely city, but when I think of it there is a real visceral sense of loathing.

At the opposite end are those places that evoke love, because of personal experience. I find those emotions hard to depict, the sense of love or hate for place can be very personal.

Then there are other places that just seem to have a sense, it feels innately right. I’m thinking of Laugharne in Wales, famous for Dylan Thomas. I only visited one weekend and yeah, that was definitely a serious vibe. Magical. These places attract people who feel it too. The south coast of New South Wales is that kind of place, it helps that it’s beautiful. I love the landscape, you can understand how the indigenous people would have lived, and how wonderful it would have been before the invasion. Now It’s different but still calming. A shared joyful playground. And then it’s not. I was there in December 2019, when the fires were about 7 KM away, We didn’t stay for when they got closer, but that looming threat. Then the floods. Desolation and doom. And then the sun shines again. We have our home back, but the memory of unease.

You mentioned Magritte as a significant influence. How does his work resonate within your practice today?”

Magritte was one of a fair few influences when I was a teenager I think surrealism really works for adolescence because it’s part of trying to understand the world we’re in and our place in it and so much of it doesn’t actually make sense at all. I very much preferred Magritte he is closer to what you expect to see in reality. A room looks real and the apple looks real. Just a serious distortion in scale, gently making us reflect . A painting of a pipe, with words telling you it is not a pipe. Well it is all true it is not a pipe, but it is a painting, the exercise in semiotics, how to be clear in meaning. And especially a resonance with his Empire of the Light series, those hypnotic juxtapositions, bringing together the day and night.

Then there’s the very personal impact on my practice starting from my A-levels (English HSC equivalent). I wanted to re-create his work as a photograph and had a 20 hours exam to do it. I took 15 hours and it was a total mess, an abject failure. I used the last quarter to create something completely different which was successful and is still relevant in my current practice. But that failure has driven me to keep trying to create that essence. I love the fact that failure keeps pushing us to try again and again, very much that’s what art practice should be, that is what excellence should be.

As a teenager he was an influence along with Julia Margaret Cameron and Edward Steichen, but that was a long time ago. They are not forgotten, and still hold an important place in my heart, but since then I’ve experienced a lot more. My practice has deepened through the influence of philosophy and the exposure of more in the way of contemporary, and especially Australian art. Magritte joins all these other things in a dense intricate weaving in my practice. And as Heidegger proposed, it is my own and unique bundle of experiences that creates my viewpoint, I want to show you mine, as I love seeing everyone else’s.