Maisie Chilton is a Pōneke/Wellington based artist, who approaches art-making and poetry in an urgent way to address, accept and heal aspects of her lived experiences as a trauma survivor living with Cerebral Palsy. A self-taught artist, she actively processes and heals psychological and physical tensions through her art practice. Maisie has recently been awarded The Springboard Award by The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi identifying her as an emerging New Zealand artist with outstanding potential. She is currently undergoing a year’s mentorship program with award-winning artist Star Gossage. Maisie has just shown a solo exhibition at Toi Pōneke Gallery in Wellington, Where does it hurt?, exploring her personal use of art as therapy for the intersection of disability, radical vulnerability, and trauma caused by sexual assault. Maisie is one half of collaborative creative powerhouse mr violet.
‘She will sleep’ was painted in 2021, oil on canvas. Maisie writes: ‘My work is generally created as part of an expressive therapeutic process, physical representations of my subconscious mind. I’ve struggled with insomnia all my life and spend a great deal of time in a realm somewhere halfway between awake and asleep. The crosses are representative of the myriad of grief in my life, I feel very familiar with grief. The hands and face suggest potentially sleep and peace or perhaps she’s just praying for those things? The title was sort of a strange personal in-joke with myself. My father was in a band in the 80s and they had a song called “He will sleep.” I suppose the irony is that she probably won’t.’