Let Me Down

In her emotionally charged Vivid Light debut, Sydney-based artist Claudia Nicholson has created a romantic homage to her birth country of Colombia.  Nicholson engages with Latinx cultural traditions, remixing them with pop culture references and brand identities to explore her complex transnational heritage.

The commissioned work adapts four of Nicholson’s existing artworks, three ‘sawdust carpets’ known as alfombras de aserrín and a floral arrangement known as a silleta. Collaborating with Spinifex Group, the rich cultural symbols Nicholson references are reimagined in an animated cycle of creation, destruction and regeneration, accompanied by music from Adelaide-based producer Lonelyspeck.

In honour of traditional processional sawdust carpets, Nicholson’s large-scale, brightly coloured and ephemeral alfombras de aserrín are disrupted and reconfigured through dance. The silleta, for which Nicholson was awarded the NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship in 2017, draws inspiration from the Medellin flower festival in which large flower arrangements are carried on the backs of participants.

Nicholson’s work has been exhibited widely in Australia, with recent exhibitions including We are all connected to Campbelltown (one way or another), Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2018; Unfinished Business: Perspectives on art and feminism, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2017; and, The National: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney, 2017.