Space Is Never Empty 2014 - 2019

By Veronica Caven Aldous

My art career spans five decades, and builds on my lifelong interest in meditation, philosophy, and feminism as conduits of freedom and peace. This book provides a survey of the art work I created in the years following my practice-led PhD, from 2014 to 2019. It is the fifth of a series of books that has documented the p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Veronica M Aldous
• Release date: Oct 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645773217

Veronica Caven Aldous

VERONICA CAVEN ALDOUS is an artist and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. My published work includes a memoir, Australian Women Can Walk: Gap Year 1979, India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, and articles for a feminist art magazine. More at: veronicacavenaldous.com

Book preview

Introduction

In 2014 I spent most of my time in the studio, often in the dark. My focus was to complete the artwork for my PhD project and choose those works that would be in the final show. Alongside this I consolidated the exegeses. The smaller and compact sculptures that emitted coloured light into the space around them, led on to works that filled much larger spaces with coloured light. The light was often slowly changing in colour. The colour was stronger and more compelling in dark spaces. I enjoyed the psychedelia of these larger colour fields. I exhibited some of the smaller light works.

I submitted the final draft of my PhD exegesis two weeks after moving house. It was a bit rushed, so the assessment took most of 2015 including more editing. The project title was Metaphors of Light: Considering Vastu Principles of Space and acknowledged that using light as a medium in my practice stimulated metaphorical response. My project sat within the historical lineage of Euro-American non-representational art yet extended on this through an exploration of Vastu principles of space from the Vedic architecture