Artist Statement // For three decades I have worked as an independent artist painting and developing soft sculptures, exhibiting in Australia and more recently in London. My main focus is human behaviour, exploring how the psychology of trauma manifests visually through the conscious/unconscious making of art. Re-imagining the ever-changing realm of being human in an increasingly precarious world is a long-term objective. 

In my studio-based practice I work with several themes, the most significant being the translation of ‘self’, attachment and the mother/child relationship, the brain and the common housefly. Through the interplay of psychological and emotional memory I use the fly to realise and advance the uncanny aspects of my imagination.

Seven ‘brains and spines’ were originally intended as a loose interpretation of the Seven Deadly Sins and through the process of making the objects slowly became ‘knowledge sites’ where the complexities of lived experience became apparent. In this way, aspects of the unconscious presented a symbolic understanding of the ambiguity of subjectivity.

Simone Kennedy’s practice re-imagines the realm of being human. Through an autobiographical lens she explores and devise systems and structures that are highly symbolic, interpreting memory, psychology, and her own emotional lived experience. During residencies at the Migration Museum, Adelaide; the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne; and the Tavistock Institute, London, she has engaged with the stories of others: long-dead (through archive) and living (through artist work-shops); stimulating a desire to further extend her practice into broader collaborative projects. She relates important social themes on life, loss, and a developing sense of 'self' through an alphabetized library of small uniform books, imagined as surreal ‘coded’ narratives that formulate a symbolic language across distinct exhibitions.

@sim_kennedy
simonekennedy.com

Anisha Pillarisetty writes about Simone Kennedy in Neoterica 2024.

Simone Kennedy, Seed (a natural brain), 2024, Red Cedar, new and recycled softsculpture materials, mixed beads, found branch, dimensions variable. Sam Roberts Photography.