Émigré II - The Folds I West End Art Space, West Melbourne I 6-16, December 2019

“Émigré II - The Folds” is an ongoing series which the artist began in 2013.
This second iteration of the series continues to elucidate the ever present, but now markedly heightened shared moment of political and ecological uncertainty through the eyes of the emigrant. The work evokes, the joy and the sorrow of the migration experience, both of dislocation and integration. We are also drawn into stories, as in literature where we become identified with the main character and are asked to feel and live those contradictory states of what is it like to be on the outside, looking in? And visa versa. Ad infinitum! Aswell as the elevated states that finding a new home and country can bring.

“The main character in the current Émigré show is Gertrude/Trudy/Tina who was born in Donawitz, Austria. Hers is like all emigrant stories…unique. She was born to a family of steelworkers. A child of the second world war. Raised by her grandparents, with her one real connection being with her grandmother, who was the only other female in the home.

In those days, a child was seen and not heard. After school & her chores, her nights would be largely spent alone under the kitchen table, lit by a single hanging globe, listening to the uncles argue and debate the politics of the day, with the steelworks streams of molten metal regularly giving their facial expressions an orange flash and glow.”

Research is critical to Paradine’s methodology and he devotes much time to it. Once image groupings cohere – they are digitally edited together. This part of the procedure is time intensive involving much experimentation. Typically involving post-processing, layering, editing, retouching and aesthetic tweaking, all in service to achieving subtle and complex lighting effects.