Tracey Willms Deane
Whangarei, Northland
Tracey Willms Deane is a Visual Artist working mainly in sculpture and installation, with a side of paint, drawing, & design. Based in Northland, New Zealand.
MessageTracey Willms Deane is a visual artist currently returning to her own creative practice (full-time) after eight years as a gallery manager and arts retail store owner. In 2020, Tracey went back to further study, earning her Bachelor of Applied Arts degree from NorthTec, Whangarei. Having studied initially at The Learning Connexion in 2005-2008, being an emerging artist, then becoming a curator, gallery owner, and arts manager of a community art centre, has provided a wealth of experiences which form a strong foundation on which to build her practice going forward. She is based in the Whangarei area of Northland New Zealand. Having been born and raised in Canada (West coast) and moved to Aoteroa New Zealand in 1989, Tracey has developed a broad perspective of culture, heritage, ecosystems, nature/wilderness, urban revitalisation, and the preciousness of unique environments, cultures, and traditions - as well as that some things are just universal. The forest and the beach are her solace, and she finds great happiness creating artworks which touch the heart and lift the spirits.
Statement
Artist Statement Bachelor Applied Arts: Final Exhibition 2020 Tracey Willms Deane
I am always keen for my artwork to inspire a healthier relationship with nature. My research this year has led me to ask, “What experiences of nature do we all have in common?” - so that I can make artwork which resonates with people even if they are currently disconnected from our natural world. My focus has moved to finding and expressing the access points to our own inner nature. Through self-reflection, breath modulation, and walking meditations we deepen our sense of peace and inner strength.
I have chosen light to express this focus because of its many physical manifestations and layers of metaphorical meanings: light source, absence of light, reflection, and the colours of the visible light spectrum. In many creation myths around the world, there was the time before light and dark, pure creativity: The Void of Infinite Potential.
Five sculptures in my series, Inner Space (2020), explore these aspects of light, cycles of time through space, and ‘looking within’. Changing patterns of light and reflection reference our mutually shared experiences of our solar system’s cycles. Reflective materials are used to reference self-reflective practice, as are the spiral labyrinth shapes using timeless, cross-cultural symbology.
Inner Space 1: Illuminate echoes the trilithon structures of Stonehenge and other megalithic calendars which have been, throughout many millennia, the gathering places of communities to celebrate light, life, and our place in the greater cycles of nature.
The Way In Is The Way Through provides a culmination of the concepts and symbology flowing through the Inner Space series. It features the triskele-shaped, unicursive labyrinth path (which is a single line through, not a maze) to portray a walking meditation. The colourful inner light meanders under the surface and reflects onto the lower labyrinth: as above, so below.
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