'Urban eScape' - Michelle Hyland

Hyland paints subjects from her night wanderings; abandoned music venues, live music gigs, music festivals, night clubbing districts. Usually populated with a heaving throng of people, and at times vacated indicating alternative hours of activity. Exploring the idea of ‘experience as currency’ in our digital world, Hyland goes hunting for her images of a community united through music and the blanket of night. The details recall the interactions of people within an urban landscape and describe the collective quest for a true experience. 

This new work is a response to the investigation of the Dance Mania social phenomena of the 14^th – 17^th Century, where people would dance themselves into exhaustion over days and nights. One theory is they were dancing to relieve themselves of stress and put the poverty of the period out of their minds. Hyland explores the idea of the contemporary music festival being an escape from our electronic worlds and a chance to release the stress of our modern lifestyle. 

A link to the review by Laetitia Wilson of Michelle Hyland's second solo 'Urban eScape' from The West Australian Sat 7 February 2015 can be found at : 

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/arts/a/26218572/review-urban-escape-by-michelle-hyland/