Sea Of Dreams: Solo Exhibition.
Studio Photography - Nick Simpson-Deeks
As I prepare for my upcoming solo exhibition Sea of Dreams at Onwards Gallery and Studios, I wanted to open up a little window into my process and what has shaped this body of work. There is so much that goes into each piece and building an exhibition is a slow, messy and mostly private process. I realised that I don’t often talk about my deeper creative intentions. I shared some of this process with my Love- Letter subscribers and this is a shortened version of that letter.
Enjoy.
So where do I begin? This one started, quite literally, in a dream.
I’ve had the same recurring dream: I’m in the ocean, and I dive beneath a wave. I sink to the seafloor and hook my fingers into the sand, anchoring myself while the current pulls my legs behind me. That moment suspended between surrender and control. Between surface and depth. It’s quiet and I can feel the weight of the ocean pressing down on me. It’s so calming, and this dream has stayed with me for a long time.
So, I started thinking about the big dreams that stay with us, and I’m not talking about dreams of ambition, but those mysterious, persistent visions that linger. These dreams feel significant, heavy with meaning. The ones that stick to the inside of your eyelids.
This became the early seed of the exhibition. I wanted it to be an exploration of Oceanic States, the Collective Unconscious, and explore the spirituality of dreaming. I wanted to dig my fingers in and pull out something unsettling and seductive. The detritus of the psyche. I wanted to talk about dreams. So I did. I talked to friends about their dreams. I began reading Jungian dream analysis and became fascinated by how few opportunities we have to speak about our dreams outside of deeply private or clinical contexts.
One of the few places dreams are allowed to live and stretch out is in art. Art lets us hold symbols, textures, sensations, and juxtapositions without demanding immediate explanation. This is psychic alchemy: personal unconscious transformed into shared language.
I found myself drawn to Surrealist artists who worked with dreams, myths and symbols. Artists like Leonora Carrington, Claude Cahun, Leonor Fini, Remedios Varo, Louise Bourgeois and Lee Miller. I was particularly taken with Bourgeois’s dream diaries and her conversations with her therapist. These artists and their work, like dreams, are layered and slippery. I spent time trying to catch a glimpse of their psyche in order to see my own.
Something that I wanted to share here (and that I rarely talk about in public) is that I keep a dream journal. Many of the pieces in this show were born from dream fragments. I comb through the entries for repetitions, archetypes, strange connections—like psychopomps ushering me across the threshold of sleep and waking. In the exhibition you will see these symbols made real. Shark eggs, pearls, and spiralling shells sit alongside the edge of a dagger, a hunting trap, and the cold stare of a sphynx.
All these layers, the research, the thinking and the sketching and the shaping and the forming sits beneath the surface of the primary symbol. The sea.
The sea became the central conduit for the exhibition and I see it as a dream space, a womb space, a wet surreal expanse where things are born, dissolved, and transformed.
My process is one of expansion and distillation. I follow threads from ideas through books, archives, conversations and unexpected synchronicities—trusting that they’ll lead somewhere meaningful. Even if the viewer never sees this scaffolding, I need to build it. It’s how I make sense of what’s calling me. Why a certain colour won’t leave me alone. Why a certain texture insists I use it. Why an image feels like it’s always been waiting. Thank you for walking with me as this show comes to life. I can't wait to share it with you.
Rosie Turner Solo Exhibition: Sea of Dreams
Opening Night: Friday 1st August
Location: Onwards Gallery and Studios, 6 Torpey Place HAMILTON, NSW
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