Echoes in Time at Belconnen Arts Centre

By Benjamen Judd

Echoes in Time by Australian artist Vivien Lightfoot has come to Canberra where it will show at the Belconnen Arts Centre from May 16 until June 7.

A graduate from the local ANU, Vivien Lightfoot’s work is inspired by the intersection of personal history and identity. For Echoes in Time, she delves back even further to the first 150 years of Australia’s settlement through the narrative of her own family tree.

Vivien Lightfoot’s Australian mother became one of thousands of war brides when she married her English husband in 1946, and did not return to Australia for 20 years. Stories about the artist’s relatives on both sides of her family reveal many similar journeys and separations going back several generations. In this exhibition, Lightfoot is motivated by a desire to construct links and discover echoes between her ancestors and to pay homage to their principles, their bravery and their initiative.

“By creating portraits of each of my forebears I have developed a connection to them. They are no longer small photos or drawings but they have become characters in their own right. I have paired the characters in order to illuminate the contrasts and parallels between the members of each generation”.

Echoes in Time is now showing at the Belconnen Arts Centre Canberra until June 7.