Alicia Campbell

The home is considered to be a safe place, one of refuge in difficult times. The memories created in the home are generally ones of family and comfort. But what happens when the safety of this space is compromised? What happens when the spaces that were once filled with warmth and ease are replaced with memories of trauma?

In my current body of work, I am exploring the transference of trauma onto a space and the objects in that space. The bathroom is a place that I feel the safest in; I am able to evaluate my own emotional and mental state with the security of knowing I am truly alone. Reflecting on trauma within this space has created a shift in the way I experience it. As the memories I need to process slowly replace others, there become different associations I make when using this space in my everyday life.

My work utilises watercolour paint and watercolour pencils. With these mediums, I am able to play with how rendered and informed I make these spaces, and how that clarity can change meaning. Through the exploration of my bathroom, the dialogue between self-care and trauma becomes more complex and overwhelming. I mix digital distortion with accurate representation of the space, changing the ways of representing and exploring the way the bathroom is altered through the transference of my memories. There are also traces of myself in some of the works, incorporating self-portraits in a subtle way to firmly establish the connection the space has to me and my memories.