Inaugural Residency for Artist with a Disability
Scott Trevelyan, master printmaker and visual arts facilitator is the recipient of the inaugural Accessible Arts Bundanon Residency for 2008. The four-week residency initiated by Accessible Arts, the peak arts and disability body for New South Wales, in partnership with the Bundanon Trust, is the first to be offered to a person with a disability along with a stipend to support his work. Scott has a traumatic brain injury, due to a serious motorcycle accident in 2002.
Scott Trevelyan, a 36 year-old printmaker, was half way through a Visual Arts Degree at Southern Cross University when he had a serious motorcycle accident. Whilst travelling in Byron Bay, Northern NSW, Scott hit a tree at high speed - a head on impact. His life as he knew it had changed forever. In a coma for ten days, he suffered eight broken vertebrae, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken shoulder blade, dislocated hip and damage to the right side of his brain.
Suffering from a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic amnesia, Scott endured the pain and frustration of rehabilitation “A year of confusion, anxiety and hard work adapting to the injuries I had suffered”. It was during this time that Scott immersed himself back into printmaking, with the same subject matter he had been working on before the accident – ironically, his motorcycle. The concept of his motorcycle, that had changed his whole life and perspective, had also become a lifeline for his growth and creativity. He produced 300 copperplate etchings of Senna motorcycle images, (the same number that Ducati had produced on the production line). The printmaking process was both time intensive, and physically demanding, however it also played a part in Scott’s rehabilitation. “I found the process of being in a known repetitive headspace very comforting”. It was this process that he was later to learn, is quite common with those that have survived TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury).
During his rehabilitation he became involved in BISSI (Brain Injury Support Service Incorporated) and began to promote art as a cathartic means of recovery to the support group. He has worked closely with both Southern Cross University and BISSI to construct an art studio at his property in Alstonvale, known as Willowbank Studio. This studio has been operating for two years and holds workshops for BISSI members. It has become a very successful resource that the North Coast Area Health, Brain Injury Rehabilitation Service also utilises to reintegrate clients into a social environment. “I wanted to share my experiences with other people who have a disability, and to show them that they are not limited in what they can do.” Scott was elected as the BISSI President and continues to hold the position today. He continues to be active in raising awareness of the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury.
In 2007 Scott Trevelyan graduated from Southern Cross University, Lismore, with a Bachelor of Visual Arts degree and works with various print mediums such as etching and lino-block to create works on paper and artist-books. He continues to use the source of inspiration from his life-changing experience. Scott explains “Using items salvaged from the crash and hospital scenes, I create templates for acid-etching into copper, emulating the way the crash has been engraved into my mind and I now use the printmaking process in a cathartic manner on my road to recovery, while working to heighten public awareness of the challenges associated with TBI.”
Scott will use the residency to develop a new body of work for his own contemporary art practise and will have access to the Bundanon Trust Printing Press. He will record and interpret the entity of the landscape at Bundanon. This imagery will then be reworked and used for upcoming exhibitions.