Research Statement_Lever_Anita_BacktotheSource: Revealing the Source, In Progress. 8 x oil on board, 30.5 x 30.5cm each. In Processed. Curated by Isobel Johnston. Articulate Gallery, 497 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt. 11 May to 2 June 2024.

Responding to the curatorial callout to expose the artist’s process in a public gallery space, Lever considered this opportunity as a mode of practice-led research that speaks to being both an artist and art therapist. The work investigates how process can be a bridge between an artist’s and art therapist’s way of thinking and relating. Lever’s concerns investigate the spaces of confluence and connectivity that creatively incubate thought and feeling - not in isolation but in a framework of relational aesthetics. Art therapists often foreground process over outcome. To reveal ‘unresolved’ artwork in a public gallery space was to accept a level of vulnerability and uncertainty as the artworks would be viewed in an ‘unfinished’ state. This is in marked contrast to the discourse of ‘mastering’, in this instance within the traditions of painting. Lever also created an interactive studio space that further revealed the inner workings of her artmaking, exposing what is often a very private space to the public arena.