Jedda-Daisy Culley '7-Up', 2020

Jedda-Daisy Culley '7-Up', 2020 was recently selected as a finalist in the 66th Blake Prize 2021 at the Casula Powerhouse, an exhibition that presented works by 86 shortlisted finalists who have engaged with conversations concerning faith, spirituality, religion, hope, humanity, social justice, belief and non – belief.

"Sprites can be, according to the Oxford Dictionary "an elf or dairy" but the word can also make reference to a "computer graphic which may be moved on-screen" or "a faint flash, typically red, sometimes emitted in the upper atmosphere over a thunderstorm owing to the collision of high-energy electrons with air molecules." I'm interested in the etymology of words, where the natural and the spiritual world's crossover in language and find place in the internet and other tech.

7-Up is a lemonlime non-caffeinated drink that until the government banned the use of lithium citrate in soft drink in 1948 had been used for many decades as psychiatric treatment. this painting seeks to explore the multidimensional and ever-widening contemporary intelligence of what is accepted as spiritual. Belief systems, including, but not limited to; spirit, after life and reincarnation can on occasion find context in modern energetic online exchanges of NRG sometimes seen in the form of a tech fairy, gif or filter. Sprite the soda or '7-Up', makes comment on the artists personal experience with depression and how medication affected her sense of Spirit. this is a painting of a Sprite. This is a free Sprite."

— Jedda-Daisy Culley