Phoebe
they/them
MUSE03
Phoebe is a creative who's experience and expressions extend to multi-disciplinary formats. They highlight themes of environmentalism and consumerism, all the while challenging the concept of 'modern art' and the way we're taught to see the world.
How long have you been making art/creating?
As a kid I was always drawing and making things out of recycled things in a play school way but I think everyone does that. Lots of people lose that as they get older or things take over; self doubt and the idea you have to be ‘good’ at something creative to make it worth doing. But I feel like for me it was in year 12 when I considered art something I would continue doing into my future. I did actually think I was going to go down a different path, I was going to go into science and medicine maybe, which is crazy and I’m glad I’m not; my life would look totally different. ...My practice has had peaks and troughs and I try to allow for that. I don’t create as much as a I want to but I don’t think many people do and I allow it to take what space it does in my life.
What mediums have you tried in the past, any favourites?
I consider myself a very multi-disciplinary artist. I really enjoy trying new things and learning new skills or practices or ways of making work. In school I was kind of experimenting with rubbish art of finding things- there was one piece which is funny to think back on, [the] root of some of my practice. [I] collected everyones leftover rubbish from lunch and dipped it in plaster and made a disgusting sculpture out of it, it was quite stinky and everyone else was just like ‘can you deal with that please’.
I’ve moved away from painting. It doesn’t draw me as much, perhaps because I put pressure on myself when it has to look like something. Now I’m interested in how much I can make with as little as I have, things that already exist [like] sound art or video art, which feels like a different process, so digital in the editing of it. Foraging and using whatever you find for sculptures, installation, weaving.
There was an artist I organised a workshop with a few years ago through platform arts, Micaela Mckew, who taught me how to weave and that was magic. Instantly I was so excited by it, you look at everything and realise its all woven. I loved that slow, meditative process, I'd already been doing lots of textile work and took an interest in the women’s history of that and the human history. For thousands of years people have been making textile works and it's been really important to our development as humans but it's not perhaps been looked at as much as some harder materials have, like the bronze age for example.
'IF it falls, it falls.'
It felt like that kind of element of practice evolved really naturally, I was making paintings on plastic and rubbish and finding crap from building sites and painting on those and then got more interested in the way they were interacting with each other. Also in class settings where the fan was on and how things would move in that space or when a body came into the space the artwork would all interact with that. I feel like there was a point where I looked at it all and the threads came together and my care for the environment and interest in using as little materials as possible, which is resistant to consumerism, but want to point to capitalism also. I...had the idea to ask people to play with it and add their own rubbish, which was easy for me as I’m not precious about my art, its made out of rubbish and that human interaction with the world is normal. It’s nice to cut through those formal rules of how you’re ‘meant’ to act in a gallery as well. Ultimately art is for the people, for the masses and I think people are used to interacting with it in a very different way.
There’s lots of thought strands that get woven together, something I think at the core is all the practices that humans innately do that we kind of have moved away from or don’t have space for in the ‘modern world’. And I think thats one of the joyous parts of art making is it’s such an innate thing; that humans want to make things and we’ve always decorated our bodies and our spaces and you look at animals and they do that as well. Birds collect beautiful things to find a mate. I often relate to birds in my art making, like I made nests for a while, I find shiny things, I kept looking at birds flying away with sticks in their beak and felt like yelling ‘how do you do it?!’
Who do your draw inspiration from?
As mentioned earlier, Micaela had one of the most tangible impacts on me because I was so obsessed with what she taught me. When I first started getting into textile art and doing research into the history of it I was thinking lots about my own family relationships, seeing my sister learn how to crochet and my mum stitching up clothes and my grandma, we have so many beautiful things she’s made. All these things that are creative and beautiful and artistic but was just seen as 'women’s work'. Practicing textiles made me feel connected to this long string of unappreciated people but my grandma for sure, she’s super clever and was an amazing artist as well.
Katie West, an aboriginal artist who uses walking as a huge part of her process as well as natural dying from pigments from the earth. Richard Sarah, he inspires me to think about less tangential, durational, oddly experiential kind of things. Ana Mendieta who did a silhouette series where she created silhouettes in the landscape.
What happens when you reach a creative block?
I don’t remember who said this but I totally took it onboard, as an artist or creative sometimes there’s the gathering stage where you don’t feel like making any work and I try to let myself do that and know I’m still taking things in and gathering thoughts and I’m just not ready to put something out yet but eventually something will click. For me strands just start to come together. I’m lucky because I have lots of different creative outputs so if I am feeling blocked I make through thinking, think through making, so I just put together something crap and then you’ve still made something, with writing, setting a timer and doing a free write and you’ve got something.
What’s your life advice?
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve got a few things going on, I just got back from a holiday so thinking about next moves but I do want to get a studio space in the next few months, it’s been on the cards for a little while and I feel like I need to invest in myself and my practice otherwise I’ll be disappointed in myself.
I’m doing a writing program at seventh gallery at the moment, pairing with an artist and responding to their practice. It's exciting to do something I haven’t done much of before, it feels seperate to my poetry practice and its been great. I’m in my churning stage, theres lots of people in my life who I’d love to collaborate with so I want to do more of that.
Linked to the way I want to live, also advice to myself, but just to live fully and make the most that I can of everything. If I’m doing something I want to, do it well but I want to have as many experiences as possible. Say yes, have a freezing swim, open yourself up to things and by doing that things will come back to you.
If your bedroom walls could talk, what would they say?
That I love my friends art, I don’t dust enough, I should probably scroll on my phone less. They’d see lots of beautiful things, me on the phone to my friends, having a giggle, me making time for myself and doing yoga and journalling. I think my bedroom walls would be proud of me, they’ve seen a lot of growing up.
You can find Phoebe on Instagram @pho_tho
MUSES Collective operates on the lands of the Wadawurrang people. We acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay respect to their elders, past, present and emerging.