@_adelleantony_
My work takes the form of series-based installations, categorised by precision, repetition, intensive and often obsessive processes of production. These installations are formulated from personal archival materials; such as, revision flashcards, old watch straps, notebooks, photographs, etc. These are selected due to their personal connection, as well as their dispensable or superfluous nature; this allows the work to have strong personal connection, whilst retaining a universal quality for viewers.
Whether two or three dimensional, my work is always formatted as a grid when displayed. The work began predominantly as static wall displays, pinned against a white wall with board, dress or architect pins. Recent works, such as ‘Be still and know: To be,’ and, ‘Be still and know: To behold,’ have evolved to take form differently in their display space. They are large and imposing, to subject the viewer to the feeling of the moment, to be held in time and to embody this experience. The tactility of the work, its natural sound reminiscent of leaves, and its rain-like quality when hanging, creates a certain stillness and silence when engaging with the work. Though I liked this quality, I have returned from allowing the work to take too much of a natural form, as it would lose some sense of the order which is characteristic of the work.
Initially my work was quite bold and colourful, as well as rigid due to my material choices; for example, ‘Homogenous,’ and, ‘Where has time gone?’ The nature of the objects have strong links to the cute aesthetic, discussed and explored by writers such as Sianne Ngai. The cute and aesthetic appearances of my work nod to conversations around commodity, domesticity and mass production [1], as well as being a way of expressing powerlessness and critiquing systems of control, such as power or attention societies. While in some ways these ideas did inform the work, recently the work strives to break free of this conversation and consider the way of removing oneself from these imposing forces of society, and seeking to embrace and integrate organic human experience. This is reflected in the use of paper, a more transient and light material, which helps to remove the weight of context when the material is repeated at a large number. This is intended to be grounding and peaceful, inciting feelings opposite to those brought up by publicity, advertisement and any form of mass consumption. Agnes Martin’s paintings are a key point of reference for how I go about this; as well as a heavy reliance on the grid format and the way it can facilitate materiality to give way to metaphysical through the order and repetition.
My work with series is highly influenced by artists such as Sol Lewitt and Hanne Darboven. The repetition in their work almost removes the significance of the individual unit, but creates a powerful whole. However, in my work the focus and careful curation of the individual highlights their individual integrity, despite their loss of focus on a grand scale. Repetition is a key tool for me to still nod to the conversations of power, whilst remaining neutral materially. My work continues to seek to create a good conversation between the form and content of the work and choosing to use paper, with it’s transient, fleeting and malleable nature has allowed for this dialogue to further. The fragility of human experience and the impermanence of human life can be well captured through the use of paper.
The physicality and attention to detail in my work is a striving to overcome physical limitations, to push the boundaries of what I am able to do, and allow the making to become an embodied and exhausting experience. This again echoes the transformation of individual parts of the human experience into a whole. It is an act of confronting reality as it is and persevering to the extent of physical capacity, reflective of the experience of life and how each small experience, person, thought accumulates to create a subjective human experience. That is why personal and archival materials are key parts of the work. This allows the work to be both reflective of self, and detached from self; exploring how subjective experience can transcend the individual and become a transformative experience for the collective.
[1] https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/43/jasper_ngai.php