Ailsa Waddell’s intimate and delicate works on paper explore big feelings in a big world. Using both metaphorical and literal symbols, Ailsa creates emotional maps as a way of navigating life’s tricky geography.

Starting with A4 drawings, Ailsa selectively layers and masks the base drawings to generate different screenprints. They work quickly – stealing moments to doodle in front of the tv, making decisions intuitively – all as a way of overcoming the discomfort that sometimes comes with making and the creative process.

Artist statement

I guess I’ve been banging my head against the wall all year trying to find the right path – news flash, I got lost. Climbed a ladder and all I found was an empty puddle.

I’ve been finding it hard to have a reason to really make art at the moment. It’s kind of just something I seem to fall back into intuitively while watching King of the Hill, or Sex and the City, or The OC. I don’t know… it’s hard for anything to feel that important when the world is burning, and the US/Australian governments are funding a genocide.

I was at work listening to the In Focus show on NTS Radio featuring Broadcast and I just suddenly felt present in a way I hadn’t maybe all year. Why wasn’t I listening to this when I really needed it?

“Subjecting to a ladder, cycling through the feelings” sang Trish Keenan. She was onto something with this one. I guess that one sentence feels more coherent than any other thought I’ve been trying to smash out of my brain in recent weeks: Something in the middle of it all; throw me a rope out of the hole already.

I guess it’s hard to have time to think clearly when you work full time and all you really do is listen to NTS shows and podcasts all day. I tried to compartmentalise my music taste/compulsions from my drawings, but it doesn’t make sense to do that anymore. Everything eats up everything else. A friend of mine told me about his favourite video game where you’re a ball that tries to eat up the world. It’s messy. This work is incomplete, it’s just something to do in the spaces between everything else. Something in the middle of it all.

About Ailsa

Ailsa is a Perth/Boorloo based artist who grew up on Noongar/Yued country (Moora). A lot of the work they make revolves around neurodivergence and intimacy in their interpersonal relationships and cycling through the “big feelings”. They often find themselves “stuck” on symbols, words or materials that signify changes within their life. Most recently it was ladders, which came from a prior show about swimming. Little bits from old work get tangled up in new work, like trying to swim in shallow water. They make a lot of work about swimming both in a literal and imaginary sense.

Ailsa has a BA from Curtin University, and exhibits frequently including at PSAS, Pig Melon, Goolugatup, and in the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award. Beyond their own artistic practice, Ailsa contributes to the local community as a volunteer at artist run galleries and for the Fremantle Biennale.

Opening event Friday | 22 November | 6 – 8pm

RSVP