Sam Sosnowski presents Memories, his new exhibition featuring paintings, etchings, woodblock prints and sculpture.
What inspired you to create a show that reflects on childhood memories?
This show has been a long time in incubation and it’s comforting to finally bring these images to the surface. Over the years I’ve returned to Carlton, Melbourne and have reflected on moments in my early childhood. The pieces from the show each represent moments of mixed emotion. I am keen to understand them, translate them, and then let them pass. I am fascinated by the fact that during childhood we are so naïve – we have no idea of our immediate circumstances. It’s so lovely to have the benefit of hindsight now at 65, and to reflect and interpret what I felt and saw.
There is a sense of fragmentation throughout the series, even in the medium choice. How does that reflect the theme of Memories?
I have refined many of the images in this show over a number of years through various media. Some media, such as woodblock, tend to be very graphic, illustrative and quirky. Yet the same image repeated on a large canvas is far more surreal and moody. I’ve used these two techniques with a number of different pieces. I guess the media I use are a way for me to interpret, understand and resolve the image. I have always turned to art for consolation and resolution. And I have never been just a painter or a print-maker; I like to diversify in my art.
How do you think your parents being Jewish Holocaust survivors affected your experience of childhood? Was there a shadow in even your sweetest memories. There is a quiet sadness in some of these works that is very beautiful.
My parents were religious Jewish immigrants who were both in concentration camps. They worked very hard after the war to achieve a level of security for our family. They would have really liked me to become a doctor, but I think they also would have been proud of me as an artist. Sadly, they both died before I was 20, so not only was there a generation gap, but I was also too young to get to really know them before they died. Now, as a parent myself with two grown-up daughters, along with a grandchild, I am sad that my kids never had the opportunity to meet them. There is an element of longing and sadness to many of the pieces. However, my parents never discussed the Holocaust, and I’m not sure that it was ever really an issue for me… maybe it affected me indirectly and it is now coming out in my art…
Tell me about the red trike?
I remember an early photo of myself in a tricycle, wearing a cardigan. I have very fond memories of light-hearted times with friends. We’d play on the plantations in the middle of the wide roads of Carlton, and I’d ride my beloved tricycle down the bluestone laneways of Melbourne.
What about the clowns – you repeated that image as you did the dart board?
I’ve had a fascination with clowns and circuses for a while. They are like an alternative world. I’ve enjoyed visiting non-animal circuses in Europe and in Australia, particularly the EKKA in Brisbane. The side shows, shooting galleries, the clowns and the carousels are like a surreal world of the imagination. The clowns with their turning heads and gaping mouths are an absurdist take on life as we know it.
The dart image is a bit more prosaic and refers to an altercation I had with my older sister, where I ended up with a dart puncturing the back of my hand!
I feel a great sense of the child alone – I only really see ‘you’ as a shadow on a swing. What did you want to reflect in that work in particular?
That work is actually a silhouette of my grand-daughter on her circus trapeze. However, it equally reflects myself as an angst-ridden teenager when I felt like I was living in a vacuum. My mum died when I was very young and I had a stepmother I couldn’t communicate with, so there is a real sense of fragility in that picture.
The imagery is very iconic for the era. How do you feel others will relate to these images of a boy’s childhood?
I hope other people will remember their own childhood and resonate with the images – although they are pretty well based in the 60s. I think that being a kid is still about being a kid. Despite the advent of iPads and iEverything… Maybe I’m naïve to think that my grand-daughter will play with robots (she will probably have a real one!), but I still hope and believe that childhood is a time of wonder and imagination that doesn’t come from a screen. I hope others will feel some of the joy I feel when I remember ‘the way it was’.
What are the stark memories of childhood for you, if you were to list them one after the other?
WelI, guess the image of All Alone pretty well sums up the starkness of those times. And looking back, objectively, I suppose much of my childhood was spent alone. I may have gone into a kind of emotional cocoon to protect myself and I know I did a lot of art to escape reality. Perhaps art was (and is), a way of allowing me to cope with whatever life throws at me.
The parents are absent from your work. Perhaps just legs in one of them… or in a photo album. Why is this?
As I mentioned, my parents weren’t around in my teenage years so there is a real sense of loneliness in many of the pieces. Even when they were alive, I couldn’t really speak to them like I do with my own daughters now. I think it was a generational thing. My dad was a very serious man and even though I went to synagogue with him twice a day for nearly 15 years, we never really had a proper conversation.
Was working towards this exhibition a cathartic experience for you?
Most definitely. These are images that have been asking for resolution for a long time and now I feel comfortable that I have got them out and put them to bed. I now feel ready to tackle the next challenge!
What should we expect for your opening?
I hope it will be a celebration of everyone’s memories of their own childhood. While many of the pieces have a melancholic element to them, there’s also, I hope, a real sense of whimsy. At the opening, there’ll be live music (playing 60s covers), retro food including the lollies we all remember such as milk bottles, bullets and raspberries. I hope people will come along to relive their own childhoods and celebrate the fact that we all grew out of it!
Opening on Friday at Lone Goat Gallery at 6pm and showing until 13 July.
