The Cabin Fever Series by Rhed Fawell
The Cabin Fever collage series is a creative response to the months of isolation that fell on the international community in the spring of 2020. In a global effort to control the Covid-19 pandemic many countries “locked down” and the impact was profound. Many were left feeling vulnerable, confused, and isolated. Cabin Fever is a product of these unprecedented circumstances. The collages explore the intense feelings of confinement within a domestic setting.
As a mother and practicing artist, the constant balancing act between family and work is a challenge at the best of times but the lockdown shifted the parameters further. The confinement forced me to question how I could make work alongside the demands of home schooling and occupying two small children. Ironically, the constraints of circumstance led to an unexpected freedom and new energy of approach. Time, space, and materials were limited, demanding a smaller scale and more spontaneous and instinctive approach. The resulting work took me in a new direction. Rather than feeling restrictive, the process was refreshing.
The choice of scale becomes symbolic. It forces the elements into uncomfortable juxtaposition, positions them close to the perimeters of the substrate, and creates a claustrophobic tension. Fragmentation is also prominent within the series, reflecting the disjointed nature of the process. Elements collide and fill the space with references to both motherhood and domesticity. A number of key visual elements - children, nature, the machine - and a sense of fragility persist, as in my other work, but are here illuminated by the particular circumstance of creation.
Rhed Fawell is a collagist who lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland. Rhed studied Fine Art at Middlesex University in London. She has also taught at the Kent Institute of Art and Design and then, for many years, was a Senior Lecturer on the Graphics BA course at Middlesex University. Rhed has exhibited her work extensively in both group and solo shows and has shown in various London galleries, elsewhere in the UK and internationally, including, in Lisbon, Germany, Poland, Italy, Belgium and the US.
Rhed founded and actively runs Edinburgh Collage Collective, which was set up in 2016. ECC is a not-for-profit Art Collective/Community. The aim of the collective is to create a network of collage artists, both locally and globally, who can support each other and share ideas.
Rhed’s work has been published in Cults of Life, OLTRE, CVA Rapsodia-Arts and Literature Magazine. Her collage art was published in Making the Cut: Volume 1 (Crooks Creative, 2016), an inspirational survey of today’s leading practicing collage and mixed media artists. Rhed’s work was also featured on the front cover of Kolaj Magazine #23 August 2018.
Instagram: @rhedfawell