Audrey Milligan
Empty
Growing up in South Africa, my art is shaped by the layered narratives of place, people, objects, and experiences that form identity. I aim to capture emotions tied to moments, evoking similar memories or feelings in the viewer. Initially, I explored how place and object can emotionally stand in for experiences, leading me to question how our surroundings trigger emotions. This journey shifted my focus from landscape to portraiture, examining the relationship between figures and objects and the tension between place and identity.
This evolution is seen in my work "Empty" which explores cultural shifts. My recent piece delves into memory creation and preservation, reflecting my experiences in the US through a lens of comparison to my formative years in South Africa. This piece analyses political and social environments and the emotions tied to experience, cultural value, and politics. My love for place, custom, and tradition influences my work, where I confront memory instability and question how experiences are reconstructed over time.
Documenting expression is central to my practice. I'm drawn to watercolor for its fluidity and unpredictability, which mirror the warping of memory. The medium gives voice to the warping of memory and the softening of experience. This approach depicts the haziness of reconstructed memory and provides the opportunity for specificity and ambiguity. As a medium, it also has the practical advantage of being easily transported. All of this makes it my preferred medium.