Julie Fragar

Sunshine Coast Art Prize 2023 - Finalist

_{[Image courtesy of the artist. Image: Louis Lim]}

Julie Fragar | Managing Reality (Still) | 2022 | oil on board | 60 x 90cm

Artist Statement

Managing Reality (Still) belongs to a series I made in 2022 using water as a metaphor for different psychological states or experiences. This—and one other bursting pipe painting—are about coping (just). What is ‘too much’ for someone is an impossible thing to predict or measure. Not only between different people but for the same person on any given day or hour. One day we fall apart from the smallest concern, and the next week, go to work while our worst nightmares come true. Managing Reality (2022, collection Art Gallery of NSW) and Managing Reality (Still) (2022), visualise our holding-it-together, that, while easier on some days than others, is the way we make it from one end of a human life to the other.