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Photo - Sam Wong.

This Artist Is Live-Streaming His Isolation ‘Residency’ For The Next Two Weeks

6th April, 2020

Soul McKenzie is living, breathing, eating and painting in a one-room space atop At The Above gallery.

Loneliness is potentially the scariest emotion society is confronting at the moment, and perhaps the most front-of-mind in the collective conscious as words like ‘isolate’ and ‘distance’ dominate our vernacular.

But multidisciplinary artist Soul McKenzie is leaning into this alone time. For the next two weeks he will eat, sleep and paint in the concept space atop At The Above gallery and live-stream his experience across social media and an interactive website. Soul challenges this time of isolation to be fruitful and productive when the rest of the world is grinding to a halt, allowing his contrasting colours and dense textures to represent the chaos of this time but also be a tonic to its unpredictability.

This experimental piece of performance art allows the Los Angeles-born, Melbourne-based artist to keep practising his expressive and unrefined style while letting his body and location make a commentary on the greater public atmosphere consuming us. A collection of Soul’s finished art will be available to purchase at the conclusion of the isolation ‘residency’,  with the sales profits going directly to Soul, and a portion to charity.

Watch Soul living, breathing, painting and existing in At The Above here or follow his project on Instagram here.

6th April, 2020

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The Design Files acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we work, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

First Nations artists, designers, makers, and creative business owners are encouraged to submit their projects for coverage on The Design Files. Please email bea@thedesignfiles.net