In This is Pep Too! Hailey Atkins presents a body of new sculptural works and drawings that revise the meaning of ‘pep’ to incorporate the reality of failure and anxiety.
Drawing on the personal and borrowing from the everyday, Atkins uses playful colour and form to articulate experiences that occur at the intersection of failure, doubt and defiant enthusiasm. Where naïve motivational rhetoric marches blindly forward, and smirking satire marches stubbornly on the spot, the work in This Is Pep Too! huffs and huddles and meanders.
It thrusts its hand skyward and just as quickly retracts and takes cover. It offers an alternate version of the world where the awkwardness and absurdity of ‘not-knowing’ is embraced and expectation is given the flick.
In This is Pep Too!
Metro Arts, Brisbane
8 – 25 May 2019
www.haileyatkins.net.au
