A wearable art creation made of black-and-white photos of her late mother is set to wow crowds at the Blueprint JCU Graduate Exhibition at Pinnacles Gallery October 7 to 29.
Third year Bachelor of New Media Arts student Marion Heath wanted to do something spectacular for JCU’s graduate exhibition. Inspired by the elaborate wearable art pieces she saw on the runway at the Townsville Fashion Festival, she had an idea… “I decided to combine black-and-white photos of my late mother, from her childhood through to her wedding day, with a series of photos I took on a study tour last year to make a ballroom-style gown,” Marion says.
“Mum and I loved watching Marilyn Monroe movies together and the dress has that old Hollywood glamour about it”
Marion Heath
“Many of the places I visited on my study tour of America, London and Germany were meaningful to Mum and I. We loved watching Marilyn Monroe movies together and the dress has that old Hollywood glamour about it.”
The project was also a way for Marion to teach her children about their grandmother.
“I had the privilege of having two mothers. An adopted mother who passed away before I had my third child and my birth mother who I met in my early 20s,” Marion says. “The journey of designing the dress became a family experience as I shared stories about ‘the lady in the photos’ with them. It was a beautiful way to share her story and honour her.”
With a wide variety of multimedia artworks on display (including computer-generated imaging, painting, sculptures and sound installations), Blueprint offers something for everyone. Also on display at Blueprint, Kate Grenenger’s work includes a series of horror-themed holographs
created to bring an anthology of short stories called Omens to life.
“My story, Broken Home, is one of 13 stories in the book and I’ve used Adobe Premiere After Effects to create animations of all the omens the authors have written about,” Kate says.
As well as contributing their artworks to the exhibition, the JCU third years have also taken responsibility for curation, installation and design as part of their work-integrated learning.
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