MARYANNE COUTTS
Dress Code.
Until 23 May 2015
Maryanne Coutts’ drawing Dress Code is a kind of diary. Two years ago she set out to record her clothing choices on a daily basis and now she is showing about a year of her document in Slot.
When Maryanne began her objective was to faithfully document the clothes she wore but, with time, the project has grown to reflect other aspects of her life. When she travels she makes a record in her sketchbook, while working in her studio Maryanne’s daily notes become meditative studies of her costume. In her office, Maryanne is also Head of Drawing at the National Art School in Darlinghurst, her notes are made on the paper that she finds there. Papers traveling across her desk that seem to temper her focus on the self and offer an alternative costume.
Of course all art is a
reflection of the artist’s life and preoccupations. This piece abandons the
convention of an artist working in a consistent manner while proposing the idea
that an artist may choose a drawing style in the same way that any one of us
might choose our clothes, apparently capriciously inconsistent - but nevertheless
appropriate to the dress code of the occasion.
We may dress to be seen
and we may dress to avoid detection, or pull on a pair of jeans because it’s
autumn. In Maryanne’s playful work the eddies and rushes of life are laid out in
her simple choices of clobber. Spread out before us is a year of Maryanne’s
life.
