Kelly Manning

In Artist Profile 55, Chloe Mandryk spoke with Kelly Manning about optimism, bricks, and making art that helps us survive. Ahead of Manning's show at Bunker Gallery, we revisit their discussion.

Since she started making art, Manning’s subjects have included colonisation, sexual abuse, the intergenerational impact of the Vietnam War around the world, feminism and personal security. They are expressed via the mediums of drawing, printmaking, painting, installation, sculpture, and soon will be explored with animation.  

The Melbourne-based Manning is also a tattooist, app developer and ‘accidental farmer.’ While the artist had a prolific period of printmaking, and still considers it to be in her blood, she has now found the stability, confidence and drive to turn her hand to three-dimensional work. As she has become more at ease with herself, and more of herself over time, what emerges is an art practice that shifts its focus from the past to future. 

Manning is resourceful worker who is cognisant of access to materials and creates by-products from the laborious task of forming miniature bricks from timber; the blocks are pre-purposed in printing for paintings before becoming part of her sculptural installations. She has also made a face-mask out of bricks, a back piece and a chest plate, forms of body armour. These are part of an arsenal for an imagined post-apocalyptic world in which personal protection is one element of an adaptive nomadic existence. On lovingly crafting each brick she notes, ‘I find the repetition very healing. By doing the same thing over and over again you have time and space to think – you can lose yourself. I think about my process, and what I want to make works about.’

One of her latest pieces incorporates a ‘she-wee’ in a monument, which pays tribute to the ability of women to nurture even in the harshest of times. The ‘trickle down’ symbolism is meaningful, as well as odd and funny. Disarming people with humour is something Manning says she has always done. ‘You’ve got to bring the light in’ she said. I spoke to the artist about her practice and the potential of hope. 

You seem like a deeply empathetic person, and resilient. Are you consciously creating on this wavelength? 

It’s something that was always in me. Growing up we had a lot of books and they had a lot of pictures in them, but they were all based around war. Being a visual person I needed something to look at and to draw from and that was it. I was very aware of the atrocities of war from a young age. I was in an environment where my father was quite volatile, his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was diagnosed when I was 18 but we were all very aware that there was something wrong for a long time. His obsessiveness over war, ANZAC day, being on the base, all the paraphernalia that comes with it from medals to shields and machetes, was almost like another sibling in our family. I spent a lot of time thinking about what my Dad’s experience was as he never really shared it himself. So I think I had to imagine what he would have seen and experienced during his time in Vietnam. I think about all the people involved, especially because we think I was affected too. 

It’s a natural way for me to work, to try and empathise with someone else’s experience. I want to feel it. I want to know. I need to investigate. While I’m on this earth I need to make as much positive change as humanly possible. That’s where my work has always led me. 

It’s positive that you have the intention to seek change. Is that the ‘optimist’s post-apocalyptic view’?

Yes, it’s possible and it’s probably the only thing that keeps me going. I do have hope that we can change. I’ve probably spent my own life trying to make little changes within my own family and failed miserably but I’m still compelled to believe and try. I have been through some pretty bad times and I think all we have is hope. 

Other than hope, has there been any other utility in your work? 

It has kept me alive. Through my childhood I would hide in my artwork and from reality. As I got older in my 20s, shit really hit the fan. I was diagnosed with PTSD and I was homeless, all sorts of things were out of control. It’s kept me alive, but it has been a really hard journey to maintain being a full time artist. I feel like I need art as much as oxygen. I have always gone to it for an escape or to deal with life. I’ve gone back to school this year, to VCA (Victorian College of the Arts) to study contemporary art. I am doing work now on ‘destructive art,’ which is fascinating; there are artists throughout time who have dealt with atrocities through their work. It’s proven that being creative is such a healing tool to have.

Are you saying that you can be making work about surviving and that helps you to survive?

I don’t think I’ve ever consciously decided what I’m going to make. With the Vietnam series that lead me to exploring anatomy and I had access to Melbourne University’s anatomy museum, and I spent a lot of time there drawing the internal body. One thing leads to another and I found myself painting the tumour on my spine. It was a natural progression but it became personal, which lead me into Vietnam and being an army kid and the victim of crime. Going out and painting flowers would for me be an indulgence, what I do is sort of dictated to me. The drive to do it is quite strong. 

Are you aware of moving from chapter to chapter in your practice? What’s the progression of the relationship between your material and subject?

It’s always been very symbolic. After I visited Vietnam for the first time, before that I had only worked in monotone, the colour and light did something to me. I started thinking about colour in terms of representation, pink as the skin that was absorbing Agent Orange that through blood was passed from my father to me, the orange obviously was Agent Orange. I was blown away by those colours. But, I was repelling people from my work because it was quite gruesome and abject, covering pathology and forensics, dark stuff. I realised that  if I wanted to get a message across I needed to draw people in, and then expose them.

I had an experimental exhibition in 2018 with Linda Studená. Her work is very much about diaspora. I had been thinking of moving into three dimensions for years, and I had been obsessed with the bunker since I was a kid. I produced MON-U-MENT-AL for that show, and there was a bigger shift than I felt my work has ever had. Because it’s closely related to war, the fort and self-preservation, the materiality was the massive shift. 

What do the bricks mean?

It really comes from the sense of security. It’s something everyone can relate to and speaks to the dirtiest word in my vocabulary, ‘status.’ You see commission houses in red brick, the town hall in red brick and so on. There’s familiarity, a story or feeling, but also the brick represents safety, the home as well as institutions and government. It’s also personal and intimate. I see these works as very bodily and internal. I also see it as a thick skin, creating toughness and developing resilience. I have become quite attached to each brick.  I see so much potential in them. They’re all small and we’re all small in the world and some of us do great things.

Are the bricks a symbol for a collective wellbeing or being strong together? 

I’d never thought of it that way but obviously, yes! Definitely. You know, I see this work as me creating a little utopia, a new world order where we are all valued  for the many different things we do. I worked in intellectual disability for a long time and everyone is differently abled. Every one of those clients had something  of value to add, it just needs to be highlighted and encouraged.

EXHIBITION
Mon-u-ment-al
25 June – 24 July 2021
Bunker Gallery, Melbourne