“The thing about balloons,” says artist Patricia Piccinini, “is that when you see them, you know it’s going to be a great day.
“They can only come out when the weather’s good. So, if it’s really windy or rainy, they’re just not going to come out. It’s not up to me, it’s up to nature. So, you have to be lucky to see them.”
Artist Patricia Piccinini is preparing to have two exhibitions of her artwork in her home town.
Melbourne’s, and Piccinini’s, luck must be changing with her Skywhale family of airborne artworks set to make their first appearance in the city’s skies as part of the MPavilion, which opens in the Queen Victoria Gardens on Thursday.
The family, made up of her iconic inflatable sculpture Skywhale from 2013 and its larger parent sculpture Skywhale Papa, won’t take flight until March, but for Piccinini it will be a special moment.
Her exhibition A Miracle Constantly Repeated took which two years to prepare – but was open for just one day in the abandoned ballroom above Flinders Street Station when it closed in June, a victim of lockdown – is open again.
“This is my biggest exhibition in Melbourne since my show at ACCA in 2002 … so it’s wonderful to have these two projects so close together in my hometown,” she says.
Artist Patricia Piccinini at her show A Miracle Constantly Repeating at the Flinders Street Station ballroom.Credit:Eddie Jim
The cancellation of Rising festival which Piccinini’s exhibition, A Miracle Constantly Repeated was part of, was devastating for her and the 750 other artists who had contributed to the festival.
“That was really hard, especially when we were all feeling so buoyant and kind of hopeful at that point,” she says. “Having said that, I think quite a lot of those projects have found new homes. My project has also reopened, so emotionally it was tough, but we got through it.”
‘This feels like my year’: Skywhale family to take flight
Source: Philippines Alive
