Kirsten Farrell
Doctor of Philosophy
Printmedia and Drawing

In my PhD I imagine colour at the limits of language as art practice. The main project of this research, The Vivisector Oracle: A Colour System for the Discovery of Truth for Artists and Others in Times of Uncertainty, (2013-ongoing) began as a list of all the colours in Patrick White’s novel The Vivisector and expanded into a work with several iterations: a set of collages using paint swatches, installation, objects, and a series of one-on-one performances. I also produced a significant body of drawings, which together propose that the relationship between colour, time and space allow a view of colour as performative.
Through my speculative studio processes I have aimed to conduct research that is both material and philosophical into the meanings of colour. I propose an expanded idea of colour as performative, and as a way of thinking that includes language and systems but simultaneously reaches beyond them.

My work spans video, installation, drawing, objects and performances that rely upon the viewers to activate the art. I see colour as an agent for thinking about what it is we can know.

Kirsten Farrell is an artist and practice-led research PhD candidate in the Print Media and Drawing Workshop, Australia National University. Her practice includes drawing, installation, painting and performance. Her research questions how meaning is constructed through colour. The central work of her research is called The Vivisector Oracle: A Colour System for the Discovery of Truth for Artists and Others in Times of Uncertainty (2013-ongoing) a colour system that consists of lists of colour names, chance, intuition informed by the novel The Vivisector by Patrick White.

Kirsten has been actively teaching for the Australian National University’s Centre for Art History and Art Theory department since 2011. In 2015 she delivered a paper at the Association of Art Historians Conference at the Sainsbury Institute in the United Kingdom titled ‘The Colour of Thought’.

Prior to the commencement of her doctorate Kirsten has practiced professionally as an artist since graduating from The Australia National University, Painting Workshop in 2000.  Kirsten has successfully held solo exhibitions most notably Exploded View at Canberra Museum and Gallery in 2010; Pretty Ulysses And Other Paintings MOP Projects, Chippendale, Sydney, in 2008 and If you must mark me, make it pretty at Mir 11, Melbourne, in 2005.
Recent group shows include; Mental, Art Not Apart Festival, 1601 New Acton South, curated by Chloe Mandryk, in 2015; in 2013, Colour Theory (performance) in Art School Anecdote, by Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich, ANU; Imitation of Life curated by Deborah Clarke, Canberra Museum and Gallery; Natural Digression UTS Gallery, University of Technology, Sydney, in 2011; Welcome to Sydney S.N.O. Marrickville curated by John Nixon.

Kirsten’s work is included in both private and public collections thought out Australia including The Australian National University and Bibliotheca Librorum Apud Artificiem -The Monica Oppen Collection.

Kirsten currently lives and works in Canberra, ACT.