SPIKE DEANE

I return to the theme of Selkies - again and again.

 

The Selkie is a folkloric shapeshifter. A seal in the sea, the Selkie sheds their skin to become human on the land. Selkie stories tend towards heartache, they tell tales of loss and longing, of feeling out of place, of living in two worlds but belonging to neither. 

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I have a Selkie and seal people resource list here and all my selkie based posts are here

 

In 2014, Depths & Shallows was a group show with Emilie Patteson and Alex Fraser-Smith at M16 Artspace. In 2015 I returned with Selkie Stories an installation of cast glass, stop motion animation and textiles.

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I have cast seals in glass, etched images on glass, slumped seal faces, and flippers. I have embroidered and stitched selkies, sewn a selkie coat, printed seals, made a selkie paper puppet and drawn countless seals! Each time I improve my processes I go back to see if I could tell the tale in a different way.

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In 2020 I created an image for South of the Sun: Australian Fairytales for 21st Century. Using one of my glass seal masks I hadn't used before, found objects, my own printed and folded paper and my own hair I created an atmospheric selkie image. You can read more about that project here.

 

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