October 20th, 2024Autistic Artistic showing at Ballarat’s Post Office gallery

Vienna Drysdale Bischard explores her own experiences of living with autism in her exhibition  ‘Autistic Artistic’ currently showing at Ballarat’s Post Office Gallery.  

Continuing through until Saturday 26 October,  the exhibition explores local  female autistic creatives and  Drysdale Bischard’s own personal experience  of growing up with autism.

In a series of self-portraits, alongside friends’ portraits and objects of personal significance, Drysdale Bischard translates childhood memories and feelings of ‘difference’ as well as the way in which she sought comfort and connection.

The artist’s sense of ‘difference’ is also relayed though a series of line drawings depicting figures that are at once familiar, yet transformed by Augmented Reality (AR), triggering abstracted imagery with digitally enhanced voicescapes.

By distorting the viewers’ sense of familiarity, Drysdale Bischard expresses the process of daily masking and modelling techniques for those with Autism, in an effort to ‘normalise’ their emotional responses and appear ‘normal’ and acceptable to others.

A Federation University Master  of Visual Arts candidate, Drysdale Bischard was  diagnosed just before her 18th  birthday and she says there’s scant research around women and  autism.

‘Autistic Artistic’ forms part of Drysdale Bischard’s masters post graduate degree, including a thesis, and she  is backed by a Federal  Government research training  program fee-offset scholarship.

Her work in this exhibition uses a range of media including acrylic and gouache on  board and digitally created works with augmented reality used to symbolise the  metaphorical mask someone with  autism may wear at times in their life in order to fit in.

Federation University’s Post Office gallery is located on the corner of Sturt and Lydiard Streets in Ballarat.