The Yellow Room

Backwoods Gallery, Melbourne (Naarm) click link

21.07.2023 ~ 06.08.2023

 https://www.backwoods.gallery/2023-jacqui-stockdale

Image: Installation of artworks and aftermath of performance, “Making hay while the kettle boils”, in collaboration with Yumi Umiumare. 21st July, 2023

Between each major body of work are my other bodies, my nudes, rarely shown, usually stacked away, laying in promise in delicate sleeves in map drawers. My nudes are my life blood, made from life in fleeting, intimate and intense moments. I call this space and place, The Yellow Room, where artist and model meet, bow to each other and go to work.

- Jacqui Stockdale

The Yellow Room is metaphysical space between mind and matter, where the artist and the model enter for a fleeting moment to connect in the studio. Stockdale has ceremoniously painted nude subjects since the infancy of her practice over 30 years ago. Stockdale squeezes the juice from the vision of the model in front of her, intimately expressing a moment in time, a slice of life.

Her erotic portraits subvert our gaze in response to these themes, previously reserved for the privileged patriarchy.These simple but suggestive paintings of formidable females in the flesh, painted furiously on flash paper, convey an immediacy and sensuality that belie her better known work as a painter/ photographer. Stockdale’s goal is to simplify and distill the figure, emphasising mood and emotion over subject matter. Broken up and reestablished on a different level, the subject is heavily invested - not with meaning but with something more significant, presence. Influenced by the concept of Japanese Butoh, finding one's authentic self, being present, embracing the dark and her passion for working with performers, dancers, friends and family.

Symbolism such as the mask, skull and ‘the hag’ are pulled from Jacqui’s playful commentary on folklore, mythology and her Australian contemporaries in particular, Sydney based, Cybele Cox. Inspired by the sensuous work of artists, Auguste Rodin, Marlene Dumas and Georgia O'Keeffe. Previous projects where the nude model is explored, or drawing directly from life include, Nudes of Chong, 2022, Heads of the Family, 2022 and working with Circus Oz as ‘artist in residence’. Stockdale teaches life drawing and anatomy at the Victorian College of the Arts.

This series was shown at Backwards Gallery, Melbourne, July 20 -August 06, 2023