Embracing Absurdity and Humour with Artist Rosie Gibbens

Ceri interviews performance artist Rosie Gibbens, who creates provocative and humorous artworks using her own body. Rosie shares her creative journey, from making animal sculptures out of toilet rolls as a child to pushing boundaries at art school with bold performances. She discusses what drives her interest in gender, sexuality, labour, and consumer desire, and the unusual yet thoughtful logic behind her work. Rosie opens up about formative relationships and learning experiences that still inform her practice today. She also offers advice to aspiring artists on practicalities like asking for what you need and not having to live up to the 'tortured artist' stereotype to make great work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Rosie creates performances, sculptures, videos using her own body to explore identity, gender assumptions, and problematic desires.
• She builds fictional worlds with their own internal logic as a structure for absurd, humorous artworks that invite deeper reflection.
• Early experiences made her question ideas of femininity, sexuality and the male gaze, which still drives her practice.
• Studying under different performance artists showed her the value of playfulness alongside intensity and confrontation.
• Rosie has learned to ask directly for what she needs to produce her best work and manage conflict better.
• She advises aspiring artists you can have a practical creative life alongside other jobs.
• Her aesthetic combines the handmade and human with technology to highlight our fraught relationship with progress.
• Rosie demonstrates a commitment to fully execute her vision, however bizarre, while keeping tight control.

BEST MOMENTS 

"I had a relationship with a much older person at the time...I was kind of trying to imagine myself as an older woman and what a sexualized women what that kind of looked like to me."

"I was kind of playing with the dynamic a little bit between audience and performer and there were some things I did which I felt like I didn’t have the control in the situation."

"I always want to have the control.”

"...there's some element of like maybe harm going on, but it’s also simultaneously a kind of joy that I have in the making of these contraptions."

"I think that talks about the kind of cognitive dissonance that we have in terms of the things that we desire, that we know are kind of problematic or that might harm us, but there’s still like a conditioned understanding."

"I think humour is really important in my work. In fact, it’s kind of a mindset that’s brought me through most of my creative career."

" I just didn’t really see it as risky, because I think within my work there’s a real internal logic...even though it might not seem very, like, rational from the outside..."

PODCAST HOST BIO

Meet Ceri Hand, the driving force behind countless creative success stories. A creative coach, entrepreneur, and dynamic speaker, she's committed to empowering creatives to realise their dreams and make a meaningful impact through her creative coaching, mentoring and training company. With three decades in the arts under her belt, Ceri has ridden the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Now, she's here to help you achieve your goals, your way.

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