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Digital artist Mikaela Stafford blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality.
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Where are you based?
I’m in Naarm/Melbourne in a shared work space called Stay Soft Studio in Collingwood Yards arts precinct. Collingwood Yards is a carefully curated arts hub made up of small businesses, galleries, cultural organisations, bars and working studios so there’s a lot of creative cross-pollination happening. I find the enthusiasm and productivity very contagious.
How would you describe your practice?
Somewhere between reality and fantasy. I find the intersections between art, science and technology extremely captivating. Biomorphic forms and reflective materials are featured heavily throughout my practice as a play with light, refraction and dimension. I hope my work invokes a feeling of familiarity and strangeness. Scale is another key component to my work. It’s unclear whether the environments are millimetres or kilometres in size. This confusing sense of dimension is created by the nature of patterns, which repeat themselves at different scales that I encourage audiences to contemplate. I would best describe it as looking through a binocular light microscope or Hubble telescope. I hope to immerse my audience into a weird and imaginary world.
How long have you been a practicing artist?
I did my Honours degree in Fine Art at Sydney College of the Arts and majored in painting although I did installations for both my grad shows and wrote my thesis on kinetic sculpture. I then moved to Melbourne to do my Masters of Art In Public Space at RMIT. Throughout the recent Covid-19 lockdowns I taught myself 3D motion graphics from YouTube and gave myself a deadline that by February 2021, I would be working for myself as an animator full time, and that’s what I did.
Talk us through your practice.
I use a range of software to create my work but it’s primarily constructed in a 3D modelling, animation, simulation and rendering program called Cinema 4D. The most consistent and intrinsic aspect to my practice over the years has been light. Whether it’s the iridescent film on a bubble or the rough texture of hair. I gravitated towards 3D motion graphics because it doesn’t feel like it’s possible to hit a ceiling with the medium. There’s always something new to learn.
Do you have any projects coming up?
I’m currently working on a public art project with the Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts, Yarra City Council and Arts Projects Australia that will be launched this summer. I’ll be displaying some of my animation works in Fed Square as part of their Anything But Square public art program for 2022. I’ve had two solo shows at Brunswick galleries Counihan Gallery and Brunswick Street Gallery this year, where I exhibited a series of digital prints, animations and a kinetic sculpture. I’ve also been working with Jamsheed Wines, who commissioned me to make 10 artworks for 10 wine labels as part of a rebrand campaign due to be launched this spring.
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