We are thrilled to be exhibiting this dynamic body of work from Melbourne based, multidisciplinary artists Carla McRae and Morgan Blue. Both artists have diverse arts practices and experiences but have risen to the challenge to truly collaborate, with each of the works in the show being made in partnership. An exercise in trust, letting go and embracing the process. 
 

ARTIST STATEMENT

"This exhibition began with a shared curiosity: how might our individual practices converge and express within the space between them? We found a guiding metaphor in the phrase “blooming, buzzing confusion,” coined by psychologist William James to describe the newborn’s first encounter with the world—a vibrant, unfiltered sensory flood.

Collaboration, in many ways, is an allegory of this beginning again. It asks us to step outside the familiar and fold into a space shaped by both perspectives—sharing a frequency, sitting with the intelligence of another’s hands and heart, shifting attention outside of the self, into the unknown.

These works arrived after a two-year long conversation sharing archives and sketchbooks, swapping notes and references, offering drawings up for remix and reclamation and, eventually, challenging our own notions of ownership by borrowing, reworking, blending our visual language. They meet at the heart of our two practices and speak to the ways that we organise the chaos of the world through curiosity and playfulness—looking closely to find small moments that crack open to reveal treasures both familiar and mysterious.

Blooming And Buzzing Confusion is a celebration of sensory excess and imaginative construction—a vibrant blur of form and feeling. We hope it reflects the feverish joy of meaning-making, and the way our distinct worlds inform, challenge, and illuminate one another."

BIOS
 

Carla McRae works as both an artist and illustrator across multiple mediums, such as drawing, digital illustration, sculpture, installation, murals and publications. With a blend of both detail and minimalism she creates bright, colourful work with bold forms and fine lines. McRae is influenced by cartoons, popular culture and everyday observation. Thematically her work often explores the realm of emotions, evoking hope and optimism through dynamic and playful visual narratives.

Morgan Blue is an artist living and making in Naarm//Melbourne. Graduating with a BA in Fine Art at RMIT (2015), she has exhibited locally and internationally. Morgan’s paintings draw from personal memory and obsessions in an playful attempt to tease out a way of seeing - the capacity to explore the everyday with a sense of animism and wonderment.

Studio image credit: Savannah van der Niet