Chelsea Gustafsson's latest exhibition, 'Souvenirs', delves into realms of memory, environmental awareness, and the delicate balance between human existence and the natural world. Through the act of painting, the artist seeks to create moments of pause and reflection, encouraging audiences to examine their own memories of, and emotional connections toward, the natural world.
Within this series of intimate, finely detailed oil paintings, we observe a solitary chair sitting amongst a jumble of empty cardboard boxes. Gustafsson is depicting a strangely transitional space, a site of activity suspended in either the act of packing away or disposal. For her, the chair represents more than just a piece of furniture; it is a conduit for the human form and a signifier of our lived experience. As she explains, "The presence of the chair suggests that of an observer and also serves as a poignant symbol of humanity's presence or absence."

Embedded within each painting are snippets of postcards, ornamental mementos, and book pages lifted from mid to late 20th-century natural history books. Emblematic of a burgeoning childhood fascination with the natural world, these objects serve as a homage to the creatures and habitats that connect us to the world around us. They also serve as a reminder of the importance of preserving our planet for future generations. Referencing these old images highlights the disparity between the empirical health of the natural environment both then and now. "The red-tailed black cockatoo is from my inherited copy of the 1977 Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds," Gustafsson reflects. "I poured over this book as a kid, doing drawings of my favourite birds from its pages. Watching the recent documentary 'Black Cockatoo Crisis' and seeing their declining habitat due to mining and housing development hit me hard. I look at the maps in this old book, of where the various species of birds were once found around Australia, and wonder what a current revised edition would look like."

The beige textures of the cardboard boxes, all battered, sellotaped, and crumpled at the edges, dominate the picture plane. Their form is humble and ubiquitous, yet also suggestive of consumption, waste, and containment. When seen as repositories of memory and knowledge, they begin to symbolise what has been lost through decades of relentless consumerism. They become an archive of extinction events, ready to be stored away.
While many of Gustafsson's subject choices directly reference troubling news stories, she is quick to emphasise that her paintings are not about these stories themselves. On a personal level, the act of creating helps her process feelings and reactions to upsetting world issues, but essentially they are about honouring the creatures and wild spaces that are often overlooked or disregarded in the pursuit of human progress.
Through her ongoing use of a playful visual language, Gustafsson encourages viewers to quietly unpack the messages housed within these keepsakes of nature. In these non-spaces she has created, these emptied sites of meditation and reflection, viewers are invited to consider what we hold dear, and, as we strive for a more sustainable future, to think about the impact of our choices on the world around us.