The 2001 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Arts Scholarships
| Fassih Keiso | Linda Marrinon | Archie Moore | Rea | John Spiteri | Paul White |
Artist: CHRISTINE COLLINS
Dress 1999
electronic resistors
150 x 35 cm
© the artist
White Lies(detail) 1998
plastic soldiers, wire
250 x 150 cm
© the artist
White Lies 1998
plastic soldiers, wire
250 x 150 cm
© the artist
Clothes are the means by which culture wraps the body: this interface is the site of the work of Christine Collins. In White Lies she has fashioned the vestments of high office (cloak and crown) out of miniature plastic toy soldiers. The disjunction between the larger picture and the detail makes the point: underlying the beauty, stature and magnificence of the powerful figurehead is warfare, and death for many.
Collins uses textile-like processes: repeated elements are linked together, setting up a relationship between the overall image and underlying pattern. Made out of electronic resistors hooked together, the chain-mail fabric of Dress turns down the volume of heavily didactic political comment in preference for a pun: electronic code/social code. This work indulges a sensual interaction between materials and the implied corporeal form of the body. The shimmering veil of Dress conjures the sensuality of material moving over form, the interaction of texture and shape.
Robyn McKenzie
From her Samstag catalogue essay
Art and Research
| Christine Collins Born 1967, Broken Hills, New South Wales |
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| 2001 | Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship MFA, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, UK |
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| 1999 | Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney | |
| 1994 | Certificate in Applied and Visual Arts, Onkaparinga Institute of Vocational Education, Adelaide |
| Fassih Keiso | Linda Marrinon | Archie Moore | Rea | John Spiteri | Paul White |