Fragments of memory.
Peter Poulet was commissioned to create a wall painting for the entrance foyer of the new Maitland Hospital. An abstract artist, his brief included an emphasis on absorbing and sharing ‘community memories that, collectively, foster attachment to Maitland and its hospital’. He spent time listening to and drawing community memories. He sketched. He planned. He painted.
Peter was also invited to contribute an artwork to the exhibition A Conspicuous Object - The Maitland Hospital at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery. The two-sided Fragments of memory was the result. It was exhibited - along with the rocking horses from the hospital - in the former front entrance of the gallery building.
Fragments of Memory, 2021
acrylic on polyester canvas
230 x 295 cm
“‘Fragments of Memory’ was made during the development of the wall painting for the foyer of the new Maitland Hospital. Its forms, colours and spirit spring from the community engagement undertaken in Maitland during February 2021.
It is an incomplete yet prototypical portion of the larger wall painting to be seen in the new hospital. The larger painting is titled ‘Story Drifts’.
Both paintings, ‘Story Drifts’ and ‘Fragments of Memory’, portray some of the history, stories and memories shared by local people who spoke of family, friends and community, and the interweaving of their stories with the hospital, the landscape and the city. As is the nature of memory and time, these narratives have become abstracted, disjointed, often incomplete and sometimes fanciful. They have endured, fractured, coalesced and changed over time. I interpreted these ideas and images in an abstracted idiom. As such this artwork permits interpretation and personalization grounded in the rich history of the people and place.”
Peter Poulet’s artworks installed in the exhibition, A Conspicuous Object - The Maitland Hospital, October 2021. The view is from inside the Art Gallery.