Fleur Kelsey :: Bilateral : Two Sides – One Story
MEDIA RELEASE # 2
4 Oct 2009
Event: Art Exhibition
Title: Bilateral: Two Sides – One Story
Date: 5th – 10th October 2009
Time: 10am -5pm
Place: ROCDA Gallery
Opening: Monday 5th October, 6pm.
WHO: Fleur Kelsey (
Fleur Kelsey gives glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors
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To celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week Fleur Kelsey will be displaying some of the work Bilateral: two sides - one story at the ROCDA Galley for the entire week to bring a focus to this positive message.
One in five New Zealanders this year will experience some form of mental illness, so making wellbeing a priority in our lives is important. Wellbeing is a concept that has two main elements: feeling good and functioning well. Research has shown five winning ways that people can support their own wellbeing and that of the people around them: connect, be active, take notice, learn and give.
Fleur is using the week to connect with the viewer by giving them a glimpse of what goes on behind the closed doors of the mental health system, as the artist claims her right to display and modify her history through a series of paintings and installations detailing a very private time in her life.
Fleur is displaying a cluster of paintings that will vibrate with the tension of what has happened and what is about to happen. Rooms become passageways to unknown terror or sweet compassion, and anticipation and adrenaline inform the mood. An installation of paper drawings will be created from the artists hospital files and notes, detailing the time around her treatment with Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT), and will be an exploration of retrospective collaborative note writing.
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Contact Fleur Kelsey (03) 487 7786
More info www.artshole.co.nz
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28 Sept 2009
Event: Art Exhibition
Title: Bilateral: Two Sides – One Story
Date: 5th – 10th October 2009
Time: 10am -5pm
Place: ROCDA Gallery
Opening: Monday 5th October, 6pm.
73 Princes Street
Dunedin
New Zealand
WHO: Fleur Kelsey ( Dunedin )
Clinicians have always had the power in mental health treatment. Traditionally they are the gatekeepers to madness, being able to label and treat without regard for the wider social context that people find themselves in. Clinicians power to label and describe shape the outcomes, attitudes and qualitative experience of those seeking services.
Fleur Kelsey has been busy working on a series of artworks called "Bilateral- Two Sides, One Story" This is for an art exhibition exploring themes around mental health treatment from an experiential perspective that Fleur plans to exhibit in full early next year.
This work uses the artists own history to explore mental health treatments from a lived position, making sense of the experience and offering it up as an exploration of contemporary issues. The work draws on a tradition of feminist investigation into women’s experience and the meanings of experience. Authorship and the authority to reveal what goes on behind closed doors is an important consideration with this body of work, as the artist claims her right to display and modify her history.
This exhibition combines clusters of paintings with an installation work.
Fleur Kelsey graduated with a BFA (Painting) from Otago Polytechnic in 2006. She is an emerging artist working with ideas around children, family life, shared experiences and community practices. She currently works across the disciplines to produce paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations.
A preview of the work will be available to view during Mental Health Awareness Week at ROCDA Gallery.
Fleur can be contacted at 03 4877786 or fleur@artshole.co.nz
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