Join us for a panel discussion about self-doubt, imposter syndrome and the complexities for artists around putting themselves and their work on display and creative practice in the face of these vulnerabilities. For this panel exhibiting artist Charlie Sofo is joined by artists Kevin Chin and Jessie Scott and moderators from the Pro Prac Podcast Nicole Breedon and Kiera Brew Kurec.
Sustaining an artistic practice has always involved navigating the inevitable pitfalls of self-doubt, failure and rejection; and this is often against a backdrop of increasingly professionalised and institutionalised expectations for artistic practice. This panel will discuss revealing vulnerabilities when personal stories enter the public realm; the complex nature of artists putting themselves and their work on display; and the phenomenon of imposter syndrome.
This program is presented in collaboration with and will form a special episode of the Pro Prac podcast – the talk behind the artist talk. Pro Prac, led by Nicole Breedon and Kiera Brew Kurec, is an interview podcast about the professional practice of artists, discussing money, studio life, productivity, success, acceptance and belonging, family, relationships, lifestyle, health and wellbeing with a wide array of artists working in many different mediums, sectors and spheres of the art world.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Charlie Sofo is a Melbourne-based artist known for his work concerned with the documentation and cataloguing of day to day experiences and observations in video, installation, drawing and text-based work. His recent projects have seen the development of concerns relating the role of affect and what it is that can be, and that we desire to read into the ordinary in artistic practice. Sofo is a current doctoral candidate at Monash University, School of Art and Design, where he also currently teaches. Sofo completed undergraduate studies in visual arts at the Australian National University School of Art in Canberra in 2005, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of Art, Melbourne University in 2012.
Kevin Chin’s paintings assemble fragments from across continents to test how unprecedented transnational flows shape our place in the world. He intertwines landscapes and repositions cultural references, to explore how place forms fluidly in the consciousness, superseding geography. He examines post-nationalism, advocating for social inclusiveness, at a time of global migrant crisis and political swings to conservative nationalist ideals. Chin has exhibited widely around Australia, as well as solo exhibitions in Japan, Singapore, and USA. He was the winner of the 2018 Albany Prize (WA) and the 2015 Bayside Prize (VIC). Chin has been awarded grants from the Australia Council, City of Melbourne, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and has served on the assessment panel for Creative Victoria. Kevin Chin is represented by This Is No Fantasy in Melbourne and Martin Browne Contemporary in Sydney.
Jessie Scott is a practising video artist, writer, programmer and producer who works across the spectrum of screen culture in Melbourne. She is a founding member of audiovisual art collective Tape Projects, and in 2013 she co-directed and founded Channels Video Art Festival. Jessie’s current video and photography work concerns the relationship between video libraries and artistic communities in Melbourne. She is currently completing a practice-led PhD with the support of a Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship, at RMIT University in the School of Art. Recent exhibitions include Miraculous Ribbon (2015) at Grey Gardens, Multidwelling (2016) at Bus Projects, The Footscray Art Prize (2017) at Footscray Community Art Centre, Medium Density (2018) at Counihan Gallery and in 2018 she self-published The Coburg Plan, a book of writing and photographs about gentrification and vernacular architecture. She has performed extensively with sound artist Alice Hui-Sheng Chang since 2011, and her videos have screened widely in Melbourne as well as in Sydney, Hobart, Alice Springs, Taipei and Brooklyn. She has two daughters, aged 4 and 1, and recently presented the report ‘Culture of Silence: arts parents accepting, rejecting or adapting to an unfriendly workplace’ along with Nina Ross and Lizzy Sampson at the Women Art and Feminism in Australia since 1970 conference in Melbourne.
Nicole Breedon’s interdisciplinary practice investigates the way humans create meaning and find significance in their lives in defiance of an absurd and infinite universe. Breedon’s methodology often pairs a work’s subject matter and material to create its narrative or illustrate its concept; often using images and tropes from popular-culture, religion, myth, and historical artefacts. Breedon’s work regularly uses two opposing yet co-existing forces such as tragedy and humour, beauty and ugliness, luxury and poverty to examine the modern contradiction between living an important life with a cohesive, meaningful narrative in a chaotic, often cruel, and unfathomably large universe. Nicole Breedon has exhibited in Australia and abroad including a recent large scale public artwork, Monotone Rainbow 2017 at Testing Grounds, Melbourne. Recent solo exhibitions include, A Lot of Luck 2015, Bus Projects, Melbourne; Feelings 2015, Firstdraft, Sydney and 2014, West Space, Melbourne; Sierpinski Mountain 2013, TCB, Melbourne.
