2013 Resolutions: Artist Hazel Dooney

				Resolutions. Some things stay the same, but most things change. We invited a small group of previously featured stated artists to reflect on 2012 and share their plans for 2013. Hazel Dooney is an Australian artist originally interviewed by stated in September 2011. If there’s a key word that I hope will define 2013 for me, it’s “escape.”  I returned to Brisbane (in Australia) to be with my dying father three years ago. Somehow, I ended up staying—and lost my sense of self and my sanity. Now I’ve resolved to abandon the large studio I have in an industrial park at the edge of the city, pack up my personal possessions, and leave within a few months. I have solo shows planned in various parts of the world, starting with one at Coagula’s new space in Los Angeles in September.  I am also escaping painting. There’s no question that my reputation and prices, especially here in Australia, have been driven by my big, neo-Pop, high-gloss enamel paintings of women. But my ideas for new work have little to do with the tedious, anal-retentive precision (and repetition) of these pieces. At the beginning of my career, I worked extensively with collage, photography, and video. It’s in these media that I’m again finding my “bliss,” to use that tired Joseph Campbell term. I want my next shows to be an unpredictable mix of media and ideas, although women and sexuality will probably still be at the fore. Some things won’t change. I’m not going to back off my critical stance towards the decaying vestiges of the “old” art establishment—commercial gallerists re-conceiving themselves as party-planners for the super-rich, Prada-clad institutional curators pretending to be superheroes, art magazine editors and their toothless “power” lists, lapping at the asses of receding numbers of advertisers. Like a handful of other artists my age and younger (still too few, it has to be said), I am going to keep experimenting with new, tech-enabled ways to connect with the web’s “million-fold audience of just one.” For better or worse, the locus of value in art has shifted from the artwork to the artist, so this is going to be more important than ever.
				Visit Hazel… www.hazeldooney.com dooneystudio.tumblr.com  www.hazeldooney.blogspot.com