Photograph on paper, ready to hang.

Signed certificate of authenticity.

‘Balancing Act’ is an attempted self portrait, employing not myself as subject but a model friend and fellow artist, Magda Kazmierczak, designed to act as a vehicle to explore my personal experiences across cultures. I was born beneath a red flag in Poland, but I grew up steeped in the proud traditions of our once great and free nation. I’m deeply nostalgic for the distant and faded music of my old red accordion, the one I learned to play as a child. I shared some of my happiest times with that instrument and with a friend who did not survive our youth.

The image, while touching on memories which point to the past, is also a contemporary one. It speaks much of my life now in a new country, the possibilities of new birth and renewal in my current life in Australia as I attempt to balance all the aspects of myself, my life past and present.

**Winner of 2014 Eureka Art Prize, Ballarat Art Foundation