Georges Mora Foundation founder and board member, Caroline Mora Williams announced Inez de Vega, a Melbourne-based performance and video artist, as the recipient of the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship.
Referencing compelling visual imagery from the history of art, cinema and theatre, Inez plays with the past to tell contemporary stories of trauma, transgression and psychological neuroses. Inez grew up in a family addicted to Hollywood musicals and it is this popular art form that delivers the starting point for her performances. By merging a theatrical aesthetic with her own personal allegory, she creates bold characters that combine satire with sincerity.
In her performances, these individuals are often driven to extremes. They transgress social norms and articulate the mental states that collectively we do our best to hide from one another. But whether our mental suffering is the result of a diagnosable psychiatric illness or merely the anxieties of everyday living, Inez believes that we each find a way of acting out our neuroses. And therein lies her obsession: how do we perform our own madnesses?
Announcing the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow, Caroline Mora Williams commented, “Inez encapsulates what the Georges Mora Foundation values – courage, creativity and the unexpected to challenge the status quo and give strength to new thinking in art.”
The Georges Mora Foundation Fellow is awarded $10,000 generously donated by arts supporters. Inez will also receive in-kind support from the State Library of Victoria and Alliance Française de Melbourne and access to a residency with Centre Intermondes in La Rochelle, France.
Named in honour of Georges Mora, the renowned restaurateur, art dealer, patron, mentor and cultural catalyst, the Georges Mora Foundation aims to facilitate and encourage new and independent thinking required for the development of art in Australia. The Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship is awarded each year to a contemporary artist to engage in fresh thinking and to research new possibilities in their art.
Applications for the 2015 Fellowship will open in early 2015.
www.georgesmorafoundation.org.au
Image: Inez de Vega
