Alice Fennessy is an artist based in Palmerston North in the Manawatu. She uses drawing to convey themes such as intimacy, domestic life and interior worlds.
Her work is currently intertwined with motherhood as she raises her two young children, dreams and memories. Alice is endlessly fascinated by the juxtapositions or dualities thrown up by pregnancy and motherhood, how these experiences can be simultaneously beautiful and ugly, tender and excruciating. Her work aims to be sensitive and vulnerable, casting light on experiences of life often disregarded.
I loved talking to Alice. We discuss her secondary art teaching career and how that feeds into her art practice, how her drawing practice developed and how she uses drawing to process what's going on in her head and around her, and sometimes as a place to escape. She shares her love of cyanotypes and the colour blue, how she has introduced stitch and printmaking into her art practice and why she likes to sometimes create her own supports or frames that become an important part of her work.
Alice was a finalist in the Parkin Drawing prize in 2023 and is a finalist again this year in 2024 - we discuss the reasons why she likes to enter this art award, and how scary but great it feels. Another juxtaposition for Alice to be fascinated by.
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