INTRODUCTING ANNA MCGRATH
'Hearing, Listening, Watching, Seeing'
TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF
I’m a multi-disciplinary artist working across many forms; directing and writing for film and theatre, curating exhibitions and community art projects, playing with ceramics and recording encounters with my everyday environment through sound, image and photography.
I have a Masters in Directing Film (VCA) and a Masters of Fine Art in Directing Live Performance (NIDA).
My films have screened at festivals around the world and I’ve directed theatre and live performances in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Paris.
I’ve been a resident artist at the Cité International des Arts (Paris, France) 2018-2019 and more recently at Arteles Creative Centre (Finland) 2022.
Even though I work across multiple disciplines there are common themes in my work;
- The innate human desire for connection
- The inherent failure of language as a reliable form of expression
- The power of shared emotion to motivate action
- How excruciatingly joyful and hilariously painful it is to be human
- Revealing the odd in the everyday
- That tragedy and comedy are two sides of the same coin
I have a yearning curiosity, always chasing what remains unspoken, what words struggle to convey. I'm fascinated by our attempts to communicate, how words often fail us and what we rely on instead.
WHY HAVE YOU JOINED HIGH TEES?
The High Tees Artists in Residence Program is principally an opportunity to see my work adapted to novel forms.
Rather than art being constrained within a frame on a wall or on a phone or computer screen, the residency gives the chance to see how it might break out of traditional forms and take on a new life: printed on a t-shirt and worn on the chest of a person walking the streets of the world.
The chance to have my work transformed in this way is invaluable and I can’t imagine the thrill it will be to possibly see my work worn on the chest of a High Tees customer or gracing a tea-towel or mug in someone’s kitchen!
The program offers pragmatic business advice and training to encourage a sustainable arts practice - something that is sorely needed for the creative industry.
And I’m super keen to be working with and learning from the other resident artists. Too often we can feel isolated, squirrelling away at our work and often disconnected and lonely. The program gives us the chance to share and learn and laugh and collaborate, working on a common goal - creating a collection under the HIGH TEES umbrella and our combined efforts all directed towards the common theme of CLIMATE ACTION.
It’s going to be an exhilarating and educational experience and I’m grateful to be one of the inaugural HIGH TEES resident artists.
