Exhibition Info

Small Vessels is Lauren Kathleen’s debut solo exhibition, presented as part of the 2023 SALA (South Australian Living Arts) Festival. ‘Small Vessels’, features a body of work exploring relief printing that places elements of nature and the human body together, finding shapes, lines, and forms that mimic each other, serving as a reminder of the life that flows within our human vessel. This work represents a return to nature and a return to self, and encourages us to find pieces of our human forms in even the smallest vessels for life. In a flower, in the ocean, in a tree. In the eye, the hand, the bones. There is a oneness to the world if you choose to look.

Where: Have You Met Charlie?
Shop 12 Adelaide Arcade
When: 01/08/23 – 31/08/23
Check website for opening hours

Opening Night

Where: Have You Met Charlie?
Shop 12 Adelaide Arcade
When: August 11th | 5-9pm

Meet the artist Lauren Kathleen plus free goodie bags and an exclusive mini-print free with the purchase of any Lauren Kathleen item sold at Have You Met Charlie? (including exhibition pieces)*.
*While stocks last

More info: https://adelaidearcade.com.au/events/sala-exhibitions-special-event/

Artist’s Statement

Nature, connection, and our connection to nature, is something I often find myself contemplating in both my visual and written creative work. Throughout this body of work, you will find some recurring symbols – eyes, hands, and the rib cage. To me, these are all symbols of connection. 

The eyes are the windows to the soul they say, and we connect to each other through our eyes, often saying what words can’t. We also connect to each other, as well as to the world around us, through touch, and we feel those connections in the heart, housed by the rib cage. The home of the heart is anatomically the rib cage, but spiritually, in the connections we find to nature and each other. I created these works to serve as a reminder to myself and others that even the smallest vessel for life, such as a leaf or a flower, is worthy of connection, and that the life we find in nature is always trying to connect with us.

I chose the medium of block printing for these works as I felt that the imperfect nature of these prints perfectly mirrors the imperfection of nature and our bodies. Why is it that we view the imperfection of a block print as a thing of unique individual beauty and character, but the imperfection of our skin and bodies as something we need to fix? 

Each reproduction of the individual block carving is carefully hand-printed, making each one a little different than the last, but no less beautiful. I hope for this to reflect the beauty in each individual person, and to remind you that who you are is exactly who you are supposed to be, and the body you have is exactly the vessel you are meant to experience life in.