Helen McCullagh
Cosima Scales
In my sunroom are two sliding windows. The light that passes through them is bright and relatively even, becoming stronger in the afternoon as the sun hits the side of the neighbour's house. This is where I work, setting up arrangements of objects to paint from life. As I paint, sunlight pours in from the left to light the objects, which are weighted by small shadows.
I like to make still lifes using what is readily available, rummaging through cupboards and kitchen drawers for subject matter. Often, I will pick out a piece of fabric from a small collection that I've gathered, and use it to offset a colour, shape or pattern in a painting - dull pink stripes against a brighter pink gingham, or deep blue against crisp white paper.
In March, my habit of combing the house for material became more significant as self-isolation restricted my choices to the things at hand. I rediscovered a pair of woolly gloves, and a flowery brown dress snuck its way into a painting.
For me, these paintings are about looking, considering colour, pattern and texture. They are also about time - both the weird, bendy time of the past few house-bound months and the brief time taken to complete each painting, bit by bit.
27 x 21 cm Oil on Aluminium $500
21 x 27 cm Oil on Aluminium $500
27 x 21 cm Oil on Aluminium $500
Cosima is interested in observational painting, making small scale works from life and with the aid of reference photographs. In 2018, she completed a Master of Visual Art by research at the Queensland Collage of Art with the aid of a postgraduate research scholarship. She has held recent solo exhibitions in Brisbane and Melbourne and is a previous studio resident at Outer Space ARI.
​
Education
2018 Master of Visual Art, QCA
2015 Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours (First Class), QCA
2012 Bachelor of Fine Art, National Art School
Solo Exhibitions
2019 Bench Space, Wreckers Artspace, Brisbane
Indoors, C3 Artspace, Melbourne
2018 Portals, Project Gallery, QCA Galleries, Brisbane
Group Exhibitions
2020 (forthcoming) Form Over Function, STABLE, Brisbane
2019 Outer Space Fundraiser, Outer Space ARI, Brisbane
The Utopian Object, C3 Artspace, Melbourne
2018 Outer Space Art Auction Fundraiser, Outer Space, Brisbane
2017 Pieces, curated by Cut Thumb Laundry, Metro Arts, Brisbane
Empathy Toward Plants, Project Gallery, QCA, Brisbane
2016 Interrupted Horizons, Rubicon ARI, Melbourne
We are not Ourselves, Byron School of Art Project Space, Mullumbimby
2015 What’s Out There, The Laundry Artspace, Brisbane
Awards
2015 The St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital Art Prize
Residencies
2018 Outer Space ARI, Brisbane
2016 BigCi, Bilpin, NSW
2014 Listhús Artspace, Olafsfjordur, Iceland
​