Who we are inside, our inner selves, are protected by our psychological defences against traumatic experiences. But when we are subjected to extreme stress or trauma we can literally feel as if we are falling apart. Psychoanalysis refers to this is as ‘regression in service of the ego’.
The essence of these portraits is to give insight into the felt emotional space of a regressive experience – the fragmentation of falling apart when our boundaries are violated or abused; the struggle to adapt and reintegrate; how vulnerable we feel when our fragile self is exposed; and, recovery from the transitionary nature of the regressive experience.
About the artist
Dawne Fahey is a Sydney-based artist currently undertaking a PhD at Western Sydney University, where she is using historical photographic processes and practice as a means for visualising empathy in nursing students. In her personal work, Dawne is particularly interested in creating fine art portraits, documentary photography, urban and country landscapes. Dawne originally studied Black & White Photography some years ago before taking up mixed media arts, and more recently has rekindled her love of creating handmade prints by studying alternative photographic printing processes in New York and Australia.
Dawne’s work highlights an intense curiosity between self and other, in an exploration of the intersection between portraiture, cultural immersion, light, identity, landscape, personal meanings, time, space, and sensibility. Dawne seeks to find emotional depth in ordinary events and everyday objects, and the extraordinary in the landscape that surrounds her. In doing so, Dawne’s imagery make sense of her felt experience of the world.
