Erin M McCuskey

Artist Statement

I grew up in a tight knit world of fabulous women; my movie star mother and my rock star older sisters, with my younger brothers supporting adventure. Our large immigrant Irish family was documented by my father on Super 8s and slides, screened regularly at gala premieres in our lounge room. I thought everyone grew up watching themselves projected on white sheets. And I thought women ran the world.

I found out as girls do that the world wasn’t so kind while traipsing from film school to art school, from cinema to gallery, gathering ideals and optimisms that only made sense when combined. I work with still images, moving images, word and projections, mixing them like oil and water. Moments of motion depicting feminisms, human rights, concepts of time and breaths of memory. I love how moving images, both cine and digital, talk to each other through folds in time. I love how memory has its own heartbeat, a different rhythm for each of us, but recognisable to all of us. Heritage footage allow flutters of time that I can almost touch. My work sparks from cinematic stylings that speak of heart ease and when combined with art defy word, existing only in emotion.

- Erin M McCuskey, March 2020

Civic Participation