OUR RABBIT, 2020⁠

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"Our rabbit" is part of the collection of HOME2020 because home for me is a place to find the courage to be open. Vulnerable. Child-like. Soft. This artwork is a celebration of vulnerability. ⁠

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⁠I find passion easy - being fierce and strong I can do. Am good at. Desire is instinctual. But the willingness show my soft side, show it to another, show it to you, show the parts of myself most easily hurt, it doesn’t come easy, and therefore really is, for me, a mark of strength. ⁠

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I made this artwork purposefully large in scale. Taking a private and quiet emotion, making it large for all to see. Standing up proud in my vulnerability. I've made marks surrounding his outline with pencil: gentle and raw lines to echo how it is that I feel. I've coloured in his nose with pink pencil, as a child might do.⁠

⁠⁠It feels extremely private, showing this artwork. I feel a bit naked about it. But in allowing it to be seen in a public fashion, I'm standing up for a part of myself I find difficult to own. Making artwork which represents that part, then having the courage to show it, is reinforcing the that that part exists at all, is telling myself that being gentle soft vulnerable child-like is okay. It’s taken me a more than a decade of deep internal work to get to this place - to a place where gentle bunnies exist in the place of dark shadow. ⁠ ⁠

⁠It's miraculous to me, the person I am now. A person who instead of being caught in the loops of the past, is free to live and love in the present. Free to revel in the marshmallow beauty of a plastic lamp made for children. ⁠

I've fought so hard to no longer have to fight. So you betcha I'm gonna show that to ya, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me feel.