Lockdown Dreaming and Lockdown Looming by Rebecca Sullivan

Two compositions, using charcoal and photo collage.

About this project: "Photo Collage (Lockdown Dreaming).  A woman in pandemic lockdown dreams of the freedom she once had.  This photo collage is the second of two self-portraits inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Charcoal Drawing (Lockdown Looming). Lockdown Looming is drawn from a woman's last swim in Otway forest nature before Victorian COVID-19 restrictions."

Scroll down to see this entry (click on each image to enlarge) and find out more about the contributing artist.

About the artist: "Rebecca Sullivan is currently working on, The Bird in Lock Down, a collation of images collected from volunteers in home confinement due to Covid-19. She also continues to work on her poetry and text-art, with many of her works found at becopoetry.com. Rebecca has had her writing published in Southerly Literary Journal, Long Paddock and the anthology 28 People Write. Her work was exhibited in Poetry a text and word-based exhibition at the George Paton Gallery in 2017, and Rebecca Sullivan’s play, Max in Three Words, was performed by Melbourne’s Ruby Theatre Company in 2019."

We asked, our artists answered: why does creativity matter now? "Right now, for me creativity matters most because it is a means to freedom. The weekend before Melbourne went into the first COVID-19 lockdowns in March 2020, I rushed for physical freedom. I drove hours, then walked hours till I found an isolated area in the forest. In a forest stream, I submerged, my head, torso and limbs in cool dark water, suspended in the timeless body. On surfacing, all senses were fully alive and present, this was freedom. From COVID-19 confinement, creativity, putting things to picture, tune, dance, words, and even into bread, has kept me feeling fully alive, this is the way of freedom."