Above Images:
”Paradise Mound”, Laura Williams, 2021
Image courtesy of Laree Payne Gallery
Photo credit to Mark Hamilton
Laura Williams has a compulsion to create. The Mount Eden artist has been painting for the past 10 years, and this month will feature in the Fumbles for Rhymes exhibition, now on at the Pah Homestead.
Her main exhibiting pieces, including Paradise Mound, are a fitting return to her Catholic roots. The Pah Homestead is the former home of a convent, and Laura herself went there for a retreat in the 1980s.
The building, and those of her other Catholic boarding school years, always fascinated her and she was left wondering about the lives and living spaces of the nuns.
“I was always intrigued by these buildings and wanted to see how they (the nuns) lived. Everything to me, was so well-used and loved.”
Her imagination was left to fill in the gaps on the other rooms. Last year, before lockdown, Laura bought the dollhouse featured in Paradise Mound, and set to work creating the convent she had always imagined. Stripping the house back to its bare bones, she fashioned every item - including the floorboards and Victorian “arsenic” green wallpaper - a common feature in buildings of that era.
The rugs were created by sticking primed hessian strips together, while the bookshelf is one of her favourite items.
“I know what all the titles are, but I wanted to keep it generic so that people can imagine what they would be.”
Laura has been a long-time op-shop enthusiast and over the years has collected bits of fabric, china, scarves, books and jewellery. Her studio now holds a “wall of inspiration”.
“I've got enough Crown Lynn to last me a lifetime,” she laughed.
“I just enjoy looking at things now.”
Her hope is that Paradise Mound will inspire memories in other people and take them back to their childhood. She started painting a decade ago as an outlet, shortly after the passing of her mother. The comparison between her day-job as a union organiser and as an artist has struck a pleasant balance in her life, and she now calls her painting “a compulsion”.
Paradise Mound was an opportunity for Laura to re-envisage her Catholic upbringing, “the moralistic and patriarchal climate that I grew up in”.
“There’s a lot of power in painting these things from your childhood… It’s a view inside my head. I find it really gratifying.”
“When it makes someone smile, that’s enough for me. I have a puerile sense of humour and no filter. I’m really happy when people smile. I want to inspire memories in others.”
Laura’s start came by painting what was in her view at home, inspired by her long-accumulated collection of treasured items - including the artwork of others on her walls, invoking her phrase “taking the pastiche”. Laura’s work was spotted online and she was invited to show in Melbourne. Since 2014, she has been showing in Aotearoa.
Laura Williams
“I paint in the evenings and all weekend.
I wouldn’t call me a Sunday painter because I paint every moment available to me. I would paint all the time if I could. However, I really do like the balance between my day job and my painting.
I like the time away from the introspection of my practice to be an advocate for workers.”
Laura now has plans to create a second dollhouse and is thinking of film and literary references that will inspire her decor, including, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, “Sunset Boulevard” and “Great Expectations”.
She is excited to be part of the upcoming exhibition, Fumbles for Rhymes, which will also feature the work of Tawhai Rickard, Dick Frizzell, Glen Hayward and other artists.
“There’s some great artists involved…I find it really exciting to be included with the other artists, and with works that I’m familiar with.”
“I’m just tickled to be involved,” she said.
Fumbles for Rhymes runs until 6 March
Read more about the exhibition here
Posted in InsidetheArt
Tagged laurawilliams