Heidi Lefebvre
Francesca Rendle-Short
Heidi Lefebvre, installation view, 2003
photo Brenton McGeachie
Heidi Lefebvre, installation view, 2003
Joy and sadness. Giving shape to feeling. Heidi Lefebvre tackles things head on. Currently staging her first solo exhibition since graduating in 2002 with Honours from the National Institute of the Arts, School of Art in Canberra, she continues to engage with contemporary politics. Civilian Casualty at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Manuka, in June, was the outcome of a NITA Emerging Artist Support Scheme (EASS) award, sponsored by CCAS. It represents a kind of ‘braving the world.’ Lefebvre knows now she is outside as she might put it, seeking opportunities, coming to terms with making art and making a living. Perhaps then the work speaks not only of these times, of itself, but of the positioning of the artist too, herself. Lefebvre’s exquisite works (a near sell-out) range across styles and media, from sketches and drawings to found jigsaw pieces, to bandages and blankets, to curious felt cutouts. The work evokes contrasting emotions; a sense of flight and trauma; comfort and shadows of grief; and as reviewer Russell Smith put it “a dream-like state where symbols of innocence contended with memories of pain or loss in the construction of a fragile sense of the self” (Muse Magazine, July 2003). A fitting start for any emerging artist.
RealTime issue #57 Oct-Nov 2003 pg. 42
