INTERVIEW:

Zara: Hi  my name’s Zara Sullivan. I study at VCA doing a bachelor of Fine Arts (Photography), so I do fine art photography.

 

Bekii: What is your experience in that art form?

 

Zara: I do photography. It’s been a passion of mine for a long time . I have pictures of my baby sister , she’s 12 now, but back then she was like, 3, and I have pictures of her from when I just had a little point and shoot camera. I did a different [university] course for the past 2 years and I was still doing photography then, so it’s always  been one of those things that I’ve had back in my mind. Now I’m here doing it all the time which is great.

 

Bekii: Have you always wanted to do photography fulltime?

 

Zara: Deep down, I know I’ve always wanted to do photography the whole time, but I’ve told myself it’s not a viable career choice. Right now, I’m really glad I changed , I was like, you know what I’m going to try, I’m going to be an artist and I’m really glad I finally made that choice. The past few years I had it in my head that I was going to be a maths teacher because I was studying mathematics as well, but now I’m here. I’m going to do it.

 

Bekii: What do your friends and family think about your art?

 

Zara: My family and friends are really supportive I’m really lucky that they support my art choices, but I think it takes everyone time to warm up to the idea of someone becoming an artist.  My parents still think I want to be a teacher. We’ll keep them thinking that for now because no one sees art as a career choice. Oh an artist? Good luck with that! But I think that there are the lucky ones out there and maybe it’s my turn. You’ve gotta give everything a go and you know, if I’m not successful we’ll see after that.

 

Bekii: How important is art to you? And how important do you think art is to society?

 

Zara: Art is so important to me. It’s practically…. It’s my life you know I’m here Monday to Friday , pretty much 9 til 5 , always thinking about art , making art , it’s pretty much all I do and think about . I don’t really have much time for anything else. And I think art for society is really important because it’s a creative way of expressing things that can’t necessarily be said in words. You know, we’ve got famous artists like Ai Wei Wei , who had the exhibition that just finished and he’s an artist who is political through his art and he reaches a wider audience than someone could just writing an article in a newspaper.  

 

Bekii: How do you bring people to your work? How do you promote yourself?

 

Zara:  To promote myself, I don’t know what I really do necessarily… I’ve recently created a facebook page Zara Sully Artist. I’ve applied to exhibit in different little exhibitions around the place. I was in an erotic art competition last year called Fek Art which was really fun. I’m also social media manager for connection gallery in Dandenong. So I think connecting and networking is how I try to put my art out there really.

 

Bekii: So you think social media is important?

Zara: Social media is so important! I think social media is one of the most important ways to interact with people, because you can interact with people from anywhere and everywhere.

 

Bekii: Do you have any art career aspirations for 5 or 10 years from now?

 

Zara:   Do I have any expectations for my art career? [That] is a really loaded question I think. I would love to say in 5 years-time, I’m still at VCA completing my masters and volunteering at as any galleries as I can and getting my art out there, featuring in smaller exhibitions. And then in 10 years-time , I’d love to say, you know, I’m a known artist  within Australia, trying to get my name out internationally by then. Dreams are big, but everyone’s allowed to dream so I’m going to hope that’s what happens, but it doesn’t mean it will.

Bekii: What advice would you give to someone who is doing art in highschool and is thinking of studying art at VCA, but isn’t sure because of the way people perceive art as a career?

 

Zara: If I was going to advise someone, who is a teenager wanting to per sue art, I say go for it, but I also say, take a gap year. I think my biggest regret is doing another course for two years  and not really learning [about] my own art style and it took me two years to find it and I’m lucky that I didn’t come to VCA straight away in a way, because I think it gives you a chance to mature as well. I mean, if you want to go for it, go for it, go for the interview, give it a go, but have a gap year and just make art that entire time and really take it into consideration that you want it to be your career. So you know that you’re signed up for the next 5 years , all you’re going to be doing is making art and just be ready to do that.

 

Bekii: Do you need a job to supplement your art practice?

 

Zara: I think you do need a job because you’re always spending money on different materials and you always need , you know, another roll of film developed , you can’t do that without a job. We’re lucky in Australia that we can have Centrelink and that can get you so far , but I think having a job is really important . As I said, take a gap year and also work in that gap year maybe , because time wise it’s not possible to have more than 6 hours of work a week [and study art full time]. And that’s one of the biggest struggles of art school, you really learn how to be a broke artist I think.

 

Bekii: Could you tell us a little bit about what you’re working on at the moment in your course?

 

Zara: Sure thing. So in my course, we do a bunch of different works at the same time. We have one subject named related studies where we do this really fun activity where we make a fake. So every week we are given a different artist and we have to make a piece of art that they could have made. Recently we did a group project that was Thomas Demand which was really fun we had to make it out of paper. Studio-wise I tend to focus on the very broad topic of feminism and my art is always pretty much inspired by feminism and it has different aspects of feminism in it. I’ve really started leaning towards looking at gender as a smaller topic within my art but I know I have a broadened idea of what to do.

 

Interviewed and writtten by Bekii Bialocki (2016)