The Anything you Want Machine, Kirsten Farrell Exhibition

Influenced by Japanese boro mending, Gees Bend quilt making, and Arte Povera, Kirsten Farrell's work inscribes found plastic with the labour of craft and the language of abstract painting to destabilise comfortable assumptions about craft and art. Plastic was once considered a magical material. It was envisaged as a thing that could take the shape of almost anything that humans desired, yet has long since become ubiquitous and devalued, synonymous with inauthenticity and cheapness. Its overuse has created massive and horrifying piles in oceans and landfills further associating it with the current age of human-generated climate change. Working at the intersection of textiles, found plastic, fiction and geometric abstraction, Kirsten Farrell's practice encompasses many forms including installation, textile, drawing and performance while remaining grounded in painting. Kirsten attended Bomaderry Primary School and Bomaderry High School and now lives in Canberra.