'Translation' - Anna Sabadini

My ways of seeing are framed from a bilingual perspective – going from Italian to English is like going from one world to another. My mother was a seamstress and is a passionate knitter. Amongst my childhood memories are the many patterns and colour associations from fabric she used, jumpers she knitted; florals in red, white and blue, or black, red and white, simple stripes. They form part of what I now think of as an aesthetic of that time, of my development – an ethnic aesthetic. Given that my mother barely completed Grade Three in Italy and I now have a Doctorate in Creative Art, there is often in our lives a huge void across which we cannot easily communicate. But, between her sewing and knitting and my painting, I can see a connecting thread of a sensibility which takes pleasure in pattern. This is translation of sorts from one generation to the next.

Being bilingual, I am sensitive to the possibilities and inadequacies of translation between different languages, cultures, memories and times. Our dualistic society sets up many polarised worlds across which translation is required – public/private, emotional/rational, antiquated/contemporary, primitive/civilised, agriculture/wilderness, romantic/classical, conceptual/formal. I am interested in using the languages of painting to bring together personal experiences of fracture, to explore the constant translation which is the pattern of a life.                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                              Anna Sabadini 2008