Sarah Tickle (SA) - OZ? FELTDARK 2020

Sarah Tickle’s OZ? is a re-examination of a preview work - a response to SODAJERK’s movie, ‘TERROR NULLIUS’ (2018) - Tickle created for the 2018 Adelaide Film Festival. Utilising rotoscoping, Tickle gives chosen actors and their characters a new narrative, one of the artist’s making. OZ? sees Dorothy, Judy Garland from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939), being caught in a twister and thrown over the rainbow into a new land, a small remote Australian town. Dorothy quickly realises she’s not in Kansas anymore: she’s a stranger in a strange and threatening land. Befriended by Asta Cadell, Deborra-Lee Furness’ character from ‘Shame’ (1988), Dorothy and Asta join forces to fight their way to a place which feels like home.

BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Tickle is an Adelaide based emerging artist who graduated with Honours in 2015 from Adelaide Central School of Art. Since graduating, Tickle has continued to explore the impact cinema and gender non conformity have had on her life through the medium of video and installation art. 

As a result of mental illness, Tickle was housebound for years starting in her formative teenage years. During this time, Tickle found the only people she identified with, and learnt from: the gender non conformist characters from the big screen. These young and wild girls; such as, Jodie Foster -  and Mary Stewart Masterson never apologised for being their true selves. They provided Tickle with a strong connection.  

Tickle’s work explores the connection one can have with a character from the big screen, in Tickle’s case, the gender non conformists (tomboys). Tickle’s work attempts to make the viewer experience the feelings/connection she has with these independent girls. This is not sexual attraction or fandom; it’s a deeper bond that Tickle didn’t really understand herself until later in life.