Fiona Jeffery @fijeffery - Tumblr Blog

Fred Sandback

Fred Sandback’s work has been hugely influential to my practice since July 2013, in particular my structural works using acrylic wool and cotton thread. However it is his method of thought and use of the space he is working in that fascinates me and directly links to and inspired the aims of my practice. He strives to create structural sculptures, while deliberately omitting as much materiality as possible. Like him, I hope my work creates merely a starting point for multiple visual forms, which begin to exist upon being observed.

I find this quote relevant in referral to Sandback's work. ''Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty." - David Hume.

Sandback’s sculptures have virtually no independent existence besides from the viewer’s understanding of what it is that they are seeing. He has majorly influenced and inspired my practice; the absence of physical substance becomes a trigger for thought process. Even in my current works in which I have been focusing on painting, the theories learnt through Sandback’s life and practice have taught me so much.

#contextuallinks

On this page I have added some reviews, overviews and photographs I have written and taken. All exhibitions, shows and events are worthwhile visiting and teach me something. However not all of them are relevant to my practice. I have gone into full depth of study for a few, and not mentioned the many that I feel in no way relate to my practice.

#exhibitions

Martin Creed 'What is the point of it?' Hayward Gallery

Work No 200, in which exactly half the air in the room is contained in balloons: ‘You experience claustrophobia and childlike lightness in about equal measure.’ Photograph: Courtesy Il Giardino dei Lauri © the artist

Creed has been an artist in the focus of my studies since school at the age of 15, and I have always enjoyed his work's utilization of space and the way in which he can manipulate a site specific work. I feel his work also holds a strong aesthetic value, it is clear he very much cares for the way in which is work is presented and seen, which I feel is an attribute often lost in contemporary art.

#exhibitions

MADA Now 2013

My work was exhibited in the 2013 MADA Now show, which was in early December in Melbourne. Here are my own photographs of my work exhibited; the exhibition was a display of Art, Design and Architecture.

My work questioned the space and what use we make of it – creating work that is hard to read spatially confronts the viewer with questionable placement and use of unusual positioning. Using fine cotton thread the works affect subtle interventions into a given space, integrating new special geometric forms which interact with the existing architecture. It must be notes also that I create these works into a given space after having studied the area for up to a week. It is important to me, and imperative to the work that it is created within its given space, to merge with and converse with that space - each sculpture of this nature that I have worked on has been a result of the nature of its own unique site.

Some of the structures in this show were left white, and some were carefully painted with a black Indian ink either entirely or in certain areas. This was something I had not previously experimented with, but creates a new outlook on the tones, shadows and effects of the individual threads. These threads appear to unite into a structural formation, creating something which seems to be solid but the tiny singular threads remind us of its fragility. The purely white structures slice through their environment while similarly reflecting it.

This was an amazing experience for me to learn about and experience curating, sponsorship, fundraising and preparing a space for a professional exhibition.

#mada

Artist Influences and Contextual Links

A-Z

Auerbach, Tauba

Guyton, Wade

Hopf, Judith

Irwin, Robert

Kempinas, Zilvinas

LeWitt, Sol

Morris, Simon

Poliness, Kerrie

Prina, Stephen

Sandback, Fred

Sosnowska, Monika

Von Sturmur, Daniel

#contextuallinks

Artist's Statement: Monash '13 Grad Show

My work concerns the use of space involving architecture, light, shadow and negative space. The work aims to bring to attention unused and unnoticed areas within the artist’s workplace. Using fine cotton thread the works affect subtle interventions into a given space integrating new special geometric forms which interact with the existing architecture.

My practice questions space and what use we make of it; creating work that is hard to read spatially confronts the viewer with questionable placement and use of unusual positioning. The combination of delicate thread in open space creates an optical illusion of sort, creating pattern where there was none before.

There forms a relationship between the work and its platform for viewing, the gallery’s architecture; or a type of intervention, an urge to change the normative function of the space.

#statementmonash

Photographs of the final painting collaboration with Emma Wise. The start contrast between the white wallpaint conecting with the geometric forms on the floor and vice versa, is clearly visible and adds a new unexpected element to the work.

Here the bold lines of the tape used to separate the colours is visible and bears a bold imprint. This project was really a chnace for us both to experiment and work together, while making a concious effort not to plan to much, and see where the ideas took us. A lot was changed along the process of making this, which is why I like the freshness of it, the organic way in which it came to be.

#practical

My work with Emma was eye opening as we realised the similarities within each of our practices. The use of inverse colour that has been paramount to my studies gelled well with the bright geometric forms Emma works with in her practice. The painted shapes on the floor and walls are reversed and mixed, altering tones and creating an optical illusion of sort.

We took the aspect of architecturally incensed colour from my work, and Emma's bright and bold geometric shapes, to enjoy working along side eachother to mix these components and see where it led us.

We together created a large scale painting that incorporated the infrastructure of the area in which it was situated.

A lot of these images show the collaboration in progress. The geometric pattern is adapted to the room it is in and seems to creep out from the given wall onto the surrounding walls, ceiling and floor.

#practical

This term I particularly enjoyed collaborating with Emma Wise. We worked together after falling by chance upon the similarities within our practices. Our common studies of shape led us to an exciting collaboration project. Here you see Emma's photographic works hung along side my paint work.

#practical

Photographs of the "skin" project. I didn't show the white experimentation as I didnt feel it was strongly representative of what I want to portray. I used nails and carefully balanced the 'skin' at a small distance from the wall. This was in order for both the difference and similarities in texture and tone to be visibly conveyed.

#practical

Experimental work. Attempting to make a "skin" of the studio, using cling film and layering of paint.

#practical

Experimentation using circles with inversed colour.

#practical

Hannah Sawtell - Installation discussion (notes and revised research).

Hannah Sawtell's seminar discussion really re-iterated to me how important it is to carefully consider the installation of a piece when you are immersed in your practice. We covered a broad range of installation artists, the influence they had on the medium as a practice and their own work in detail. We discussed these artists works, as well as taking a look at some of our own works and covering different ways in which installation should be considered with each peice.

Artists discussed (A-Z)

Trisha Bagga, Judy Chicago, Martin Creed, Marcel Duchamp, Anya Gallaccio, Robert Gober, Thomas Hirshorn, Nancy Holt, Yayoi Kusama, Jim Lambie, Bruce Naumen, Kurt Schwitters, Paul Thek.

-How the work is placed. How we look at our work in its environment as a final thing.

-1924 Kurt Schwitters - Merzbau. Total artworks as a space. Walking into the work rather than looking at it. Creates a real clarity of spacial awareness - where you place the work becomes part of the language of the work itself.

-Duchamp 1942 mile of string around exhibition of surrealist paintings that Andre Breton organised.

-Nancy Holt’s ‘Sun Tunnels’ (1967) is located in the Great Basin desert in Utah. Four large industrial pipes are placed in a cross formation. Each pipe has small circular unique casts which create interesting patterns of light when the sun shines through. Light vs shadow illusions are relevant in my own work and i especially find this interesting.

-Yayoi Kusama - 1960s-70s. Admitted herself into a mental home and does this 'obsessive' work

-Mike Kelley installation work

-Bruce Nauman 1970s - spaces which are so simple it begins to make you feel quite anxious.

-Lambie - forced to walk on floor or his work. something that people dont feel comfortable doing , difficult to know weather people will or wont walk on it. he confronts them without an option

#workshops

John Russell's 'What is an image?' Seminar Review.

Image. What is an image?

Merlot Deleuse - time and movement The meaning of images etc, the images in terms of aesthetics Images as deception or illusion Either hiding or obscuring reality Plato’s allegory of the cave - the way we can never actually experience the “real”. We can’t ever come into reality because we are always one step removed from reality. You don’t really see the REALITY you see an image formed in your brain through your retina. You aren’t really in contact with 100% reality. We like the idea that an image is hiding reality. As reality is dull as fuck. We use the image as something deeper than reality actually is. Rene Magritte, the treachery of images. ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe.’ Is the text a part of the image? It isn’t a pipe. It is an image of a pipe. A painting of a pipe. Where is the status of these different paradoxes? Rembrandt, holy family with curtain. 1646. Layers. He has painted a painting of an image so that he can paint a curtain in front of a painting. You become aware of what it is you are looking at. A reminder of the materiality of the paint itself. Images have a materiality or physicality. Not just a surface. Jeff Wall, Milk, 1984. Flattening and square qualities. The splash of milk like a splash of paint. Where does the milk fit in , where does it exist? Layers. We are all images to each other and to ourselves We are completely formed by the images projected back to us of images of ourselves We create ourselves through images Medusa- turning into an image or object through your gaze Optical illusions (Jesus image) - WHERE is that image? Maurice Merleau-Ponty - the primacy of perception. Vision and image. We are a materiality in a world of image and seeing. Seeing is but an embodied physical action or thing. Not an idealised imagery. ‘Embodied seeing’- this imagery happens in a moving world in which we are living and breathing. Where is the seeing happening? Where are ‘you’ to me as an image? The image of you is kind of ‘over there’, or where you are, physically. But in fact, the light is going onto my eyes and into my brain refracted, so where actually is the seeing happening? Is there no such thing as colourr? Or light? These are mental instructions that we impose on to objects. Our eyes and brains are constructed in the same way and create these images in our heads. Where is this fucking image? Does it even exist? It’s not even clear, where the image is happening. There is decoding an image, understanding it’s meaning, but there is also the way in which images have some kind of force or power. This power could be described as affect. The relationship we have between image and ourselves. We see images as this immaterial thing like thoughts. But it really is a material thing. We don’t think of it like that. We divide the world up like that. And images are on the side of an abstract ’ world’.

Moving images. The way it seems like a moving image but it really is infant mainly still images with barely any movement. “Movies”. Cutting gives an idea of continuous movement but they really are very static scenes. The idea of the GIF. manga movies. Still images with a tiny amount of movement. The cutting makes us think it is a movie but it really is still images. Takeshi. He makes movies with minimal movement, based on the absolute mini laity of manga films. Kind of a catch 22. There is actually almost nothing happening. Very slow. Continuous scenes cut onto eachother. Strange mixture of movement and animation against the static nature of film and cartoon. This may relate to the idea of the tableau vivant. They’re set up , the way perspective works is so that we HAVE to be looking at it. It’s completely set up so that the painting is in the right place that you should be standing there looking at it. It is set up for you to look at. Does the painting exist if you aren’t looking at it. Vanessa Beecroft. The confusion between the stillness of image. Then the reminder that you’re not in fact looking at an image. It is almost a performed image. Flicking between image and ‘real’. You kind of remember small moments in time as a small image or as a GIF. Ie. 9/11.

Time image. How does time operate when you’re in a cinema? You’re watching someone else’s story going on, but at the same time your life is ticking by simultaneously. There’s the time that’s happening in the narrative of the story you’re watching and the time going on as you watch it. There’s a relationship between the two. Deleuzes time image. Like we are looking at time and experiencing it as well. Disrupting our expectations in a film.

Images… There are images which hold a view or a message or emotion to display. Then there are images which inadvertently affect you in some way. Sometimes you can appreciate an image as being nice or good, but it doesn’t affect you. Often what the artist intends is not what is experienced. The studium is the thing we extend onto an image. The punctum is the resinence that jabs us if the image affects us emotionally in some way. We aren’t taking about generically ‘shocking’ images. We are talking about generally benile images. The experience of time. The ‘that has been’ of photography. The punctum of the man in a cell, handcuffed. We associate the image that he is in jail and he is on death row. However the punctum is the fact he is about to die. He is now dead. There is this ‘then’-ness of the image.

We are very used to organising imagery especially documented and news images. Organising and compiling the scenario in our head , without meaning to usually. But sometimes you are drawn to one small perhaps irrelevant detail that isn’t the usual media of the photograph. Richard Billingham. Is it a personal thing? A punctum could be different for everyone? Can you look for the punctum? Or does that defeat the point of the image? The image is as material as we are. And we are drawing our own relationship between our lives to the image that the world that the image we are looking at exists within.

#workshops

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