'Bundled Together' by Jess Mara - An oil painting of a woman with shoulder length brown hair and a fringe, she crouched with one knee resting on the ground and is slightly leaning forward toward a single yellow flower. In her right hand, the woman holds yellow garden secateurs poised around the stem of the flower. The woman is carrying numerous packages on her back. Each package is wrapped in pale coloured cloth or paper and is tied up with string. In the foreground rests red and orange fabric with numerous folds and creases.

'Bundled Together' by Jess Mara

South Australia • Australian Premiere

'Bundled Together' draws on personal domestic rituals and practices to reflect on the many loads we carry in day to day life. Through a series of paintings Mara utilizes concealed items and an introspective tone to examine both physical and emotional states. Wrapped and held together, these paintings signify at times a comfort, a weight, something to hold, to nurture, to love, to juggle or to sort, suggesting an attempt to find balance.

Image: Jess Mara, To Carry, 2021, oil in linen, 84 x 67 cm. Image courtesy the artist.

Presented by: Centre for Creative Health

The Centre for Creative Health is a charity of The Hospital Research Foundation Group and a leader in the provision of best-practice art therapy, music therapy, diversional therapy, exhibition programs and other initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing for patients, families and staff in hospitals including the Royal Adelaide Hospital, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre, Lyell McEwin Hospital, Specialist Ambulatory Rehabilitation Centre (SpARC) at Modbury Hospital, the Jamie Larcombe Centre and Southern Adelaide Palliative Services at Flinders Medical Centre.