Interview with Artist Petrina Hicks

Shenae and Jade
Untitled, 2005
119 x 111cm
lightjet print



AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations?

Petrina: Classical marble sculpture, renaissance painting, representation of female in contemporary culture and throughout art history, female symbolism, mythology, tapping into the collective unconscious, animism, non­duality, Kiki Smith, Vermeer, Michaël Borremans, contemplating the human condition: we are ephemeral, energetic beings having a human experience ­ looking at how we reconcile that.


A key aspect explored in my work is the dichotomy between the vitality of life force and fragile mortality of the human body. The way many people reconcile these polar opposites is through the notion of a divine force.


Ideas relating to female identity and representation are also explored, drawing upon art history and looking at parallels between the depiction of females in renaissance art and contemporary image culture.


My work also explores symbolism and archetypes, symbols are derived from archaic residues, I’m interested in the longevity of symbols and myths and their appearance in contemporary culture.



Another key theme in my work is the animal-human relationship, animals seem to serve as a symbolic carrier of self, they represent aspects of self that I term ‘other’, aspects of self that are unresolved, unknown and foreign, or aspects of psyche yet to resolve.
 

Artists have used representations of animals for centuries because they allow us to enter a metaphorical space enabling greater freedom to explore these abstract and unknown aspects of self, psyche and other.

The Hand That Feeds
The Shadows, 2013
100 x 200cm
pigment print


​AHC: What first drew you to art? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create?

​Petrina: It was through my discovery of photography, this tool called a camera that I could use to record my creations. There was an element of magic and mysticism I associated with photography, the chemical darkroom process of developing the film and seeing the images appear like magic. Then making prints in the darkroom and watching the images appear gradually on the paper as it's bathed in chemistry. It was this whole process I fell in love with, and the mystery of waiting to see what would appear on the film.

​I use a camera to record the sculptures I create in the studio, the sculptures are most often comprised of human, animal and objects. These sculptures are surrounded by clean blank space, so the viewer can enter the photograph and circulate the subject as one does with sculpture.
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Birdfingers
The Shadows, 2013
100 x 100cm
pigment print


AHC: Can you talk about your notion of the 'false promise of perfection'? How you've been able to utilize photography to explore this, and why it's most compelling to use the clean, bright aspects of commercial photography to upend and suss out the contradictions behind these faulty notions of perfection and unspoiled surfaces?

Petrina: My work is a subtle exploration of female representation, drawing upon art history & contemporary image making, often posing as the exact thing I’m investigating and this ambiguity could easily be misread.

I’m interested in representation of female identity in these classical works, so I refer to these works yet simultaneously challenge them in my work. Which is a fine line, how does one challenge/interrogate the exact thing it’s posing as?

My works look pleasing to the eye, yet within the image’s there is often something that doesn’t deliver, like a rupture in the surface, so the image doesn’t deliver the pleasure & seduction it’s promising.

In my recent exhibition ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’, I was interested in the historical symbolism of ‘woman as vessel’, in one image a woman is laying across several antique looking vessels,
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being 
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 2015 
100 x 77cm 
pigment print


and in another image the woman is depicted posing with copper and brass vessels. It’s a subtle investigation of ‘woman as vessel’ symbolism, it invites one to consider the female and the objects she is posing with.
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Serpentina II 
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 2015 
100 x 100cm 
pigment print


AHC: What is it about the relationship between the animal and the human that inspires your work?

Petrina: I find that animals seem to function as a kind of tool for allowing me to think through identity.

Certain notions of human evolution seem to suggest the further a human distances itself from the animal, the more evolved the human is. 

Indigenous knowledge / Animism, suggests all creatures (animal and human) are interconnected and one. 
The boundaries between human and animal in my work is blurred, it is hard to determine where the human begins and the animal ends.

Humans are self reflexive and seem to create an interior reality, this reality is then projected outwards. Whereas animals seem to live on the surface, in the moment, in the exterior - it is this dichotomy I find fascinating.

​The human subjects in my work appear dream-like and motionless, somehow trapped in their own interior, closed off to the exterior world.

Lambswool
The Descendants, 2008
120 x 120cm
pigment print



AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on your work, writers, filmmakers, philosophers etc? 

Petrina: I adore the work of Kiki Smith, her multidisciplinary practise explores mysticism, mythology, folklore, art history, traditional feminine archetypes.

​Throughout Kiki Smith's career her exploration of female, animal, nature and other has been a constant theme, explored through various mediums.

I like this quote by writer Siri Hustvedt:
 
“To look at Kiki Smith’s work is to enter a borderland where the articulated lines between inside and outside, whole and part, waking and sleeping, human and animal, ‘I’ and ‘not I’ are often in abeyance.”

The Chrysalis
Beautiful Creatures, 2011
Single channel HD video
6:00 min loop



AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away?

Petrina: The main central train station in Helsinki, an example of Romantic/Art Deco? Finnish architecture, there are these huge monolithic statues of mythical gods holding spherical lamps. I can't explain why, but I'm mesmerised by these statues/train station.

​And I recall similar feeling upon seeing the paintings of Vermeer.

Ghost in the Shell
The Descendants, 2008
Single channel SD video
2:00 loop



AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about?

​Petrina: Some new work I'm currently making will be shown next year at The Armory Show, Photo London and exhibition titled Wall Power; Significant Contemporary Australian Photography in Berlin.


For more information visit www.petrinahicks.com/


All images © Petrina Hicks (petrinahicks.com)
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