Loribelle Spirovski + Brock Q Piper

Initially inspired by my experiences staying in various motel rooms across the country - a place of both transience and permanence - I was fascinated by these impassive structures, offering both comfort and escape for people with their own stories and mysteries.

The series has since expanded into an exploration of rooms themselves and how inhabitants interact and exist with and within the space. In this sense, I was inspired by Francis Bacon’s depictions of people close to him, in distended and distorted brushstrokes that captured his own internal conflicts and fixations.

Equally influenced by the vision of David Lynch, this series interpolates psychological states through the language of dreams, juxtaposing characters with the constant murmur of interpersonal conflict. Amidst all this, the only constant is a white, amorphous shape; a symbol of the dreamer as they appear in their own dream.

I've always been fascinated by the bull and particularly bull fighting, which I have very polarised feelings about - on the one hand I find it completely barbaric and loathsome, but on the other, it's compelling and beautiful in its passion and violence (in the same way that Goya's 'Disasters of war' is beautiful). I have also always been deeply fascinated by mythology, particularly from the Greeks, and have incorporated some characters in many works, which is why that particular piece is called 'Minotaur'.

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There is a homage paid to Bacon in the work titled 'Portrait of a Marriage' where I recreated one of his studies of Lucian Freud on one of the walls of the room.

Growing up in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, I have always been fascinated by birds in flight. The way they fold themselves, twist and contort their colourful bodies to float effortlessly through the trees. A blur in time, caught in another realm, between the past and the present.

Memories are similarly experienced. Fragments that come and go from our present, appearing, then lost again. They seem to twist and change and reform in our minds, barely tangible, constantly evolving with the addition of time and experience.

I am looking to create a visual poem through my work. Attempting to will the birds out of mid air, to grapple with them mid-flight. Working the image up in layers to allow the forms to evolve and dissolve on the canvas. As an exploration of self, I am dissecting my life as if it were a specimen pinned down to be examined, twisted and manipulated into its final resolution.

For me, the act of painting is one of dredging the past. A way of forging a visual story by conjuring history. It is a cathartic act of interpreting and understanding self and lived experiences. There is a little part of you that gets left behind in the work, like a shard of your soul embedded within the layers of paint.”