The essence and evanescence of Lill Colgan

Lill Colgan is a multi-disciplinary artist of European ancestry, originally from Whadjuk Nyoongar Boodjar (Perth, Western Australia) and currently settled in Sydney on Gadigal land.

Since graduating in 2014, Colgan has shown in multiple exhibitions nationally including Hatched National Graduate Show at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA); Passing/Parades, SUCCESS ARI, Perth; King Single/Expanded Queen, FELTSpace, Adelaide; Of All Others, curated by Kate Britton, Firstdraft, Sydney; and The TV Show, curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Wollongong Art Gallery. Colgan has participated in development programs and residencies at Vitalstatistix, Port Adelaide; Proximity Festival, Perth; and Cool Change Contemporary, Perth. They are currently undertaking a one-year tenancy at Parramatta Artist Studios.

This conversation took place in November 2020 on the occasion of Lill’s Firstdraft exhibition A Hole Where There Once Was A Logo. Interview by Athena Thebus, Co-Director, Firstdraft.

Lill Colgan. Photo: Jacquie Manning. Courtesy the artist.

Athena Thebus: Can you talk us through the physical and conceptual elements of your exhibition?

Lill Colgan: The exhibition is informed by my experiences working in fashion retail spaces. When making the show I was thinking about how gender is organised and controlled within these environments and how the human psyche takes on ideas through materials. I’m coming at this from a trans/gender-variant orientation and as an employee of a large fashion multi-national. On a daily basis I am obliged to support and guide customers through a rigid, binary clothing system – subsequently promoting a way of thinking and being that I don’t subscribe to. I also have to engage with strangers at work in a friendly manner whilst fending off their sometimes intrusive questions, discomfort and out-right disgust of my being. The show thus simultaneously deals with the embodied feelings of fatigue and frustration I get from upholding gender norms, being visible in public and the ways these systems are embedded in everyday materials. This interplay between my personal experience and an external site or power is an ongoing dynamic in my practice. 

Physically speaking, the works in the show are predominantly made from second-hand garments that have tactile and sensuous qualities. These objects are situated in relation to sterile, generic chrome retail infrastructure. Some of the garments are scented with essential oils (lavender, ylang ylang, peppermint) and filled with rice, giving them a chunkiness and calming quality. There is also a gentle DIY/teenage aesthetic to the show – you might notice this in the wall drawing or the emo-playlist echoing through the space. At a few points when developing the work, I imagined myself as a kind of teenage girl character; stealing clothes from MYER whilst listening to Evanescence on her headphones. In general, I wanted the show to resemble a change room or storefront that was unforgivingly trashed by someone.

Process image. Courtesy the artist.

Process image. Courtesy the artist.

“The show thus simultaneously deals with the embodied feelings of fatigue and frustration I get from upholding gender norms, being visible in public and the ways these systems are embedded in everyday materials.”

AT: I really appreciated touching the different fabrics, feeling the weight of the rice in the garments, and the scent of the oils in your installation. Tell us more about how and why you incorporated these tactile and sensory elements.

LC: Garment Must Be Handled Delicately, Pulled to Shape, Hand Squeezed developed out of a few gifts I created whilst in isolation earlier this year. These initial gifts were small, chunky, rice-filled objects made from old clothes I had stored in my apartment. They were hand-sewn and adorned with jewellery that you could fidget with. At the time, I was using hand-sewing and crafts as a form of self-soothing and distraction. With the work in this show, I want to lean further into the idea of finding comfort through relating to materials and offer this to audiences. This led me to think about remedial products like weighted blankets, heat packs, and scented eye masks. For me, turning clothing into remedial objects was about unpacking my internal relationships to visibility and subverting the symbolic power of garments.

Lill Colgan, Garment Must Be Handled Delicately, Pulled to Shape, Hand Squeezed, 2020, chrome nesting tables, dressing room hook, second-hand garments, rice, and essential oils dimensions variable, A Hole Where There Once Was A Logo, 2020, installation view (detail), Firstdraft, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer. Courtesy the artist.

“For me, turning clothing into remedial objects was about unpacking my internal relationships to visibility and subverting the symbolic power of garments.”

AT: When I walked in, the weighted denim skirt was laying half on the wall and half on the floor, and there were three weighted garments cinched in different positions between the chrome and glass furniture. The feeling of fatigue really translated. I thought of the song ‘Lazy Girl’ by Macy Rodman. Can you talk more about this feeling of fatigue and frustration in the context of fashion and capital?

LC: From me, the feelings of fatigue and frustration in this show are inherently connected to late-capitalist ideas of beauty, body-image, femininity and labour. In the essay ‘Always be Optimising’, Jia Tolentino unpacks the way athleisure in particular embodies these late-capitalist power structures. Tolentino states: “Athleisure, by nature, […] eroticizes capital. Much like stripper gear, Athleisure frames the female body as a financial asset: an object that requires an initial investment and is divisible into smaller assets – the breasts, the abs, the butt – all of which are expected to appreciate in value, to continually bring back investor returns” (p88). In this sense, clothing becomes about relating to oneself as an object to be consumed and forever improved. I feel like this body/capital dynamic is heightened for trans-femme people who take up the additional labour of un-doing and reframing how we are seen and related to. 

I’m interested in how exaggerated fatigue can be used as a performative device to work through the feelings that surround trans embodiment. ‘Lazy Girl’ by Macy Rodman is a perfect example of this bratty, adolescent counter-productive energy! These ideas of fatigue and adolescence are being explored by many other trans makers too like Gogo Graham and Puppies Puppies.

Lill Colgan, Caught In Reflection, 2014, single-channel video, 49 minutes 28 seconds, artist's bedside table, lamp, alarm clock, and a framed image of Grace Jones, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.

AT: Your exhibition is titled after a lyric from Frank Ocean and you have included a playlist as part of your installation. What role does music play in your art-making?

LC: Music has played many different roles in my practice over the years. Early on, I was using pop music in video works as a device to frame my performances. For example, I used ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush in the work Caught in Reflection to explore the performance of femininity and flamboyance. I’ve also used lyrics as titles for multiple artworks of mine. This is simply because I find the poetics in a lot of pop music deeply affecting, in ways that other art forms aren’t. The title of this show – A Hole Where There Once Was A Logo – is a lyric by André 3000 on Frank Ocean’s Track ‘Solo: Reprise’. For me, this lyric speaks to a feeling of dis-identification, lost hope and apathy – it’s about reflecting on what you once had faith in and feeling the emptiness that remains.

I’ve been creating playlists over the past couple of years as a way of mapping or sketching out an emotional space. Making playlists helps me side-step cerebral ways of understanding an experience and feel things more directly. In this show, the playlist A Bruised and Exhausted Body acts as a counterpoint to the traditional retail shopping music. Instead of exciting and enticing people into a space of consumption this playlist is intended to make people feel slow and sad. It includes tracks about longing, loss, dissatisfaction, and yearning for relief. There’s a certain relational quality to music in galleries that I find really appealing – it almost forces the listener to engage in a dialogue.

Lill Colgan, Garment Must Be Handled Delicately, Pulled to Shape, Hand Squeezed, 2020, chrome nesting tables, dressing room hook, second-hand garments, rice, and essential oils, dimensions variable, (foreground); Benefit Denial, 2020 black biro wall drawing 29.7 × 42 cm (background), installation view (detail), A Hole Where There Once Was A Logo, 2020, Firstdraft, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer. Courtesy the artist.

“I’m interested in how exaggerated fatigue can be used as a performative device to work through the feelings that surround trans embodiment”

Lill Colgan, From Looking To Feeling, 2019, mirror, silver metallic chain, Levi’s 511 men’s slim jeans, altered diamante necklace, dimensions variable, installation view, Cool Change Contemporary, Perth. Photo: Cool Change Contemporary. Courtesy the artist.

“I find the poetics in a lot of pop music deeply affecting, in ways that other art-forms aren’t. ”

Lill Colgan, Girl Introjected, 2020 various second-hand garments, nail polish, dressing room hooks and straight arm hanging rail, dimensions variable, (background); Garment Must Be Handled Delicately, Pulled to Shape, Hand Squeezed, 2020, chrome nesting tables, dressing room hook, second-hand garments, rice, and essential oils, dimensions variable (foreground), installation view (detail), A Hole Where There Once Was A Logo, 2020, Firstdraft, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer. Courtesy the artist.

AT: How has this year been for you? How has your lifestyle and artmaking been affected by 2020?

LC: This is a big question. I’m finding it difficult to summarise the breadth of ways this year has changed things for me. I’ve definitely developed a deeper appreciation for the therapeutic qualities of crafts and the ways slow processes can afford mental space; having uncomfortable conversations has become a more regular part of life… in a good way I think? And post-isolation, I am seriously contemplating a life and career outside of the arts and I find that really exciting in ways. I’ve thought about the beautiful article ‘You are never the person you expect to be’ by Anastasia Klose in Un-magazine Issue 11 quite a lot. These are some but not all the ways my life and work have been affected by 2020.

Lill Colgan, Girl Introjected, 2020 various second-hand garments, nail polish, dressing room hooks and straight arm hanging rail, dimensions variable, installation view (detail), A Hole Where There Once Was A Logo, 2020, Firstdraft, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer. Courtesy the artist.

AT: In your email signature, you sign-off as ‘Artist, Kate Bush Specialist, and Bruce Nauman Impersonator’ – can you tell us about your relationship to these artists, and/or other individuals/artists that have shaped your practice?

LC: This email signature is a long-standing personal joke/accidental artwork? The ‘Kate Bush Specialist’ element came from an email I sent to the Kate Bush Dance Troupe, a collective of performers from New York who choreographed live performances to Kate Bush songs. They never replied... I think the ‘Bruce Nauman Impersonator’ part came after watching Hennessy Youngman’s ART THOUGHTZ episode on Bruce Nauman in art school. To be honest, I feel a little bit distant from this joke and these artists at the moment… Currently, I get a lot more excitement from artists like Gordon Hall, Isa Genzken, Robyn and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.

“Making playlists helps me side-step cerebral ways of understanding an experience and feel things more directly”

AT: Where to next? What projects and plans do you have for the immediate and longer future?

LC: I think over the coming months I’m hoping to slow down my making process and take time to chew through these ideas around clothing further. Thankfully, I still have a few months left of my tenancy at Parramatta Artists Studios, so I plan to utilise the generous space/time that they offer to make more work. I’ve been thinking about costume design, furniture and soundscapes so perhaps these things will launch me into more installation-based work. Alongside this, I’m going to be super busy at work in the coming months preparing for upcoming sales and of course Boxing Day. Love this time of year… lol.

Lill Colgan, Garment Must Be Handled Delicately, Pulled to Shape, Hand Squeezed, 2020, chrome nesting tables, dressing room hook, second-hand garments, rice, and essential oils, dimensions variable, installation view (detail), A Hole Where There Once Was A Logo, 2020, Firstdraft, Sydney. Photo: Jessica Maurer. Courtesy the artist.

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