Exhibition Statement
Every mark tells a story.
Mark making becomes a form of narrative expression. Each line, gesture, or trace carries emotion, memory, and intention. These marks invite you to interpret, to connect, to complete the story in your own way. I have a narrative for every piece in this exhibition; every viewer will bring their own narrative. Every experience has a different story to tell; every story makes a different mark.
Art has never needed to reproduce the world exactly. From the handprints on cave walls to the paintings in Lascaux, mark making has always been a record of human presence – a narrative stretching across thousands of years. These early marks remind us that storytelling begins long before language.
This exhibition continues that lineage: marks as memory, marks as meaning, marks as narrative.
Artist Bio
I studied printmaking at CIT 1981 – 1983, then Art on Paper Conservation at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, London. 1984 – 1986. Not happy with that I went on to a Post Graduate Diploma of Art History and Film Studies, University of Melbourne, 2003 and a Post Graduate Diploma of Teaching, MGSE. 2012.
I suppose that my art really tries to counter my life.
My reality is chaotic, rushing trying to organize a million things. Looking after my autistic children and the chaos that brings. The endless questioning of myself by myself and I feel everyone else. Always being judged and found wanting. Mess.
My work to me exudes a calm that life is lacking; I am not trying to make a strong political statement. I could on so many topics; disability, patriarchy, ableism, ageism, the environment, the inequality in our education system, the life expectancy gap between indigenous Australians and white Australians, homophobia, transphobia, people who hates cats, people who judge others based on petty rivalries. Even this is an incomplete list.
I want to create works that in the first instance, I enjoy making. To be immersed in the process. Flow. To stop and look and think, yep, that makes me satisfied; that I have tried, not every piece is a success, but they are all part of the process.
Calmness. Soothing – not a valley of misery. I want to share the stars. A sense of belonging.
Image: ‘Hassenfluh’, Victoria McCaffrey, 2025, watercolour and gel pen, in a sketch book.
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