Before COVID Ms Dickson worked with large fabrics and canvases, but with no room in her small flat for her art supplies she went small - creating art on her mobile phone.

"I took heaps of photos of my drawings and fabrics, then used a free app on the phone and that became like a little studio," she said.

"Most of the programs mimic art-making and can make stuff look like a painting or print. The digital cyber world is actually a pretty exciting place for an artist with how it can mimic the physicality of art making."

Lying on her chair, with the television on, Ms Dickson made art which now has a more tactile essence after being printed out on to canvas and adorned with embellishments.

Her works have gone from the cyber world, through the printers of Office Works and are now on the walls of the Art Gallery of Ballarat's Backspace Gallery in her exhibition My Cyberspace Studio, which runs until February 27.

The subjects of the artworks in the exhibition, which express the darker side of the human experience, come from Ms Dickson reflecting on her time spent teaching in maximum security prisons, her childhood on a farm at Rainbow, trauma in all its forms and the shared human experience of the anxiety of COVID lockdowns and isolation.

"A lot of stuff came up with me when I was relaxed and drawing at home," she said.

IN OTHER NEWS

The adornment of some of the images with rhinestones and other embellishments was almost akin to the mask that many people wear in the face of trauma and dark experiences.

"Embellishment is a way to cover up, when you put that little mask on because you're trying to make things better than they are, when you don't want people to see the real truth. It's that shared human experience," she said.

"I feel like I actually produced something throughout that lockdown time, something meaningful to me. I'm nearly 70, I I learned a new skill, and learned by myself, which is often what we have to do."

Our team of local journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the Ballarat community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: