Bella La Spina

Bella La Spina is a multidisciplinary artist based in Sydney/Eora who primarily works within the realm of archiving. Having conducted years of research into Coffs Harbour (Gumbaynggirr Country) as a site of personal and familial history, what has resulted is an understanding that the essence of history lies not in the grand narrative, but in the subtle impressions of trace that weave together a narrative beyond the official record. The artist has confronted the absences that exist in the archival institution and has considered theorised ideas such as Roland Barthes’ punctum, Jacques Derrida’s hauntology and Sigmund Freud’s unheimlich to create a body of work that brings to the fore the ghostly trace and impressions of undocumented histories.

Bella La Spina utilises extractive printmaking processes and analogue forms of recording to create photographic etchings that emphasise the temporal mark. Recently working with printing directly onto silk organza, the delicate and translucent material has allowed the artist to further the notion of spectrality that has become an integral part of her research. Repurposing scavenged silk screen frames and experimenting with UV sensitive dyes has allowed Bella’s practice to expand into new territory as the remnant trace of previous use that remains on the surface of the wood and mesh, along with the highly unstable nature of working with light sensitive emulsions that is expressive of disappearance and spectrality. What has resulted is an alternative archive that confronts the complexities of the archival landscape and touches on themes of spectrality, ephemera and fragmentation, to create a nuanced portrait of place and its history.

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