Brigitte Watkinson Cheshire, United Kingdom
Born and raised in Bavaria, I previously studied and taught languages before focussing on art. Maintaining a particular interest in language, its semantics and social contexts I recently completed my MA in Fine Art. My practice incorporates sculpture, collage, painting, installation art, animation and photography.
I take inspiration from day to day conversations, literal translations, patriarchal and feminist language and like to poke fun at political rhetoric and propaganda. Anagrams, metaphors, materials and methods are tools to ravel and unravel communication processes and to create new narratives. Using collage, painting, sculpture, text and spun newspaper I build layers to emphasise the multi-dimensional process of (mis)communication and resulting effects. My materials are often recycled, homemade, pilfered or found; then constructed and reconstructed allowing the story to unfold. During the recent pandemic my practice grew to include a poignant scenography of my fluctuating mental state. Due to the now enforced rather than self imposed confinement to my home and studio I began to experience unfamiliar bi-polar like sentiments of despair and gloom, hope and cheerfulness, fear and endurance. Subsequent investigations, interpretations and reactions, inspections of the inside versus the outside documented in paintings and collages. Collated magazine images, old art work, current newsprint, paint, photography and found objects amalgamated and intra-acted, creating visions and telling stories of the complex dynamic and surreal interior landscape of my emotions.
