Interdisciplinary artist Emma Clifton explores the pervasive effects of colonisation in the thought-provoking exhibition, 'An Elephant in the Room', opening at Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery in September.
British-Australian artist and printmaker Clifton’s work was influenced by George Orwell's 1936 essay - Shooting an Elephant, in which Orwell wrote about his experience in British-occupied Burma. An Elephant in the Room reflects on Orwell’s critique of the dominating influence of colonialism on the colonised and the colonisers.
Clifton uses print-media, embroidery and collage to explore their ‘shameful’ British heritage. They also investigate the legacy of colonial-era borders and their impact on our current social and political fabric.
The artist seeks to understand the complexities of their own white, ‘male’, British ancestry, alongside the ongoing British/colonial beautification of history. They represent how the British specifically, and the west more broadly, engage in a gentrification of memory. To highlight this cultural amnesia, Clifton engages in acts of erasure in their work to showcase the legacy of British colonisation of the world.
