SLAG Heap Projects will launch their first exhibition for the year next week, showcasing the work of local Barkandji artist Krystle Evans.
Evans, who grew up on the Sapphire Coast but spent time in her ancestral country of Wilcannia as a child, relocated to Broken Hill five years ago, and said the creative community in the region has helped her lean into individuality in her arts practice.
“When they talk about country people finding this real authenticity and oddballness, I think you really see that here,” she said.
“That sort of feeds into that niche art genre, people just go with it and make what they want.”
Evans said though she had heard of Broken Hill being an oasis for the arts, she hadn’t realised just how many unique creatives lived here.
“So that was a really lovely discovery,” she said.
“It’s an amazing arts community and seeing what people are doing is always very exciting.”
Evans said her childhood was spent making and crafting, and when she didn’t have access to pencils or sharpeners, she’d pull charcoal from the fireplace and draw on the verandah.
“It would make such a mess and annoy my mum,” she said.
For her upcoming exhibition, she used recycled textiles and painstakingly sewed each artwork by hand.
“I do all my sewing by hand,” she said.
“It’s very time consuming, but I find it very therapeutic in a lot of ways.”
“I always joke that maybe its stabbing holes into something thousands of times. I’m naturally a restless person but have capacity to sit for hours and days on end sewing, that’s where my patience lies.”
The outcome is darn, an exhibition of tens of textile works that draw inspiration from petroglyphs and Aboriginal bark paintings.
“Sort of retelling narratives through textiles,” Evans said.
“I think what’s interesting about art and particularly aboriginal art is that It always tells a story. But then in the stories, everyone has their own interpretation, they take on their own sort of lives. So for me it’s about recreating narratives and I do in a very feminine way, I’m always looking through a very female lens.”
Evans said challenging expectations in regards to tradition is at the core of her work.
“There’s always a debate around textiles and craft and what is art and what is craft,” she said.
“There’s also always debates around Aboriginal art and people’s opinions of what constitutes Aboriginal art, and quite often people would like to keep it in a very traditional space.
We always talk about being from the world’s oldest continuous living culture and that colonization might have created some sort of a period of interruption but we’re still here and still making work. So I’m taking a very old sort of imagery and giving them a contemporary interpretation and practice.”
Evans’ exhibition will open at Slag Heap Gallery, 217 Oxide Street, on Thursday, with an opening night event on Thursday 17 April at 6pm.
