Lores by Bec Smith & Charlotte Swiden
Opening at Melbourne’s No Vacancy Gallery on 15 February 2022, Lores ruminates on creative life in lockdown while expanding on the stories that connect us.
Words: Emma-Kate Wilson | Photography: Graham Alderton
Melbourne-based artists Bec Smith and Charlotte Swiden's collaboration unfolded through the city’s harsh lockdowns. Now in 2022, the collection of works created purposefully for the exhibition pose a reflection on this challenging time and how creativity — despite the odds — thrived.
Bec and Charlotte first found each other’s practice through social media. They discovered an alignment of creative motivations and personal values plus a shared approach and attitude to their practices.
Charlotte first reached out to Bec as designers by trade, successful artists, and mothers to young children, questioning ‘How do you do it all?’ in 2020. ‘I don’t think I had anyone around me that understood the creative pursuit and motherhood at that time, and Bec was exactly the person I was missing,’ Charlotte reveals.
‘I had admired her work for a long time. For someone who is as busy as Charlotte, she is more grounded than any person could ever be!’ Bec adds.
The result of this meeting, and all the subsequential conversations and discussions had in 2021, is reflected in Lores – a series of artworks within themes of storytelling, individual and collective narratives, and mythologies.
Inspired by Modernism and design sensibilities, both artists’ work follow a similar aesthetic focused on shape and pattern, referencing mysterious and quirky stories. However, the approach varies from minimalist and primary colours for Bec and maximalist in earthy tones and texture for Charlotte.
‘Charlotte’s paintings use an earthy palette of colour and texture, a multiplicity of layered forms and pattern. They are like dreamscapes with the retelling of her experiences enmeshed with traditional symbolism,’ says Bec. ‘While mine is classic 60s, 70s and 80s storybook colours from the publications I grew up with alongside my own interpretation, then abstracted, reduced to the bare feeling.’
The two artists muse on traditional notions of storytelling, books from Bec’s childhood or the Scandinavian myths Charlotte grew up with in Sweden. The collaboration also allowed them to work through grief attached to climate change after Charlotte considered the role and celebration of the environment and seasons in Swedish culture and folklore.
‘Making art and chatting to Bec helped me work through some of that and find some new meaning in what I do,’ says Charlotte. ‘We were able to create how we wanted to; we can bend the (self-imposed) art making rules and change our own tales for how we want to live.’
Inviting their audiences to muse on Lores, the artists craft a reframing of the past two years and the challenges they brought. Instead, the exhibition inspires hope, change, and connectivity — mantras for a, hopefully, post-pandemic world.