‘DRESS CODE: The First Five Years’ is the result of a ritualistic daily drawing practice and series of works, in which the artist’s concerns are in response to what she was wearing each day for the last five years. According to the artist this fashion blog ‘attempts to harness the ways that the days continue to follow each other, one after the other; unstoppable. It is a journal of what I wear each day not in a ‘realistic’ or documentary way but a fluid emotional extension of the creative activity of getting dressed in the morning. Each morning; every morning.’
Based in a lively drawing practice, Coutts’ work reflects her increasing interest and exploration into the relationship between drawing and time.
Maryanne Coutts, Dress Code 31.8.14, 2014, collage. Courtesy the artist and Australian Galleries, Melbourne
‘I have always felt taunted by the enigma of time as it unravels and unrolls without stopping or starting…
My recent drawing projects also acknowledge my life long love of fabric and clothes. In the ‘daily’ project Dress Code I have, for the last 5 years, made drawings of what I was wearing each day. Through this ritual, I find myself focusing on the power of fabric as a metaphor for the membrane between here and there, now and then, the intimate and the public; the edges of self.
Drawing in its direct, immediate presence is fundamental to it all.’ – Maryanne Coutts
Arts Academy, Post Office Gallery
24 May to 30 June, 2018
Victoria
