Jess Johnson - Ivan Anthony 2014
On the last evening of April this year I attended the opening of Jess Johnson’s show ‘Ratholes in the Babylon of Information’ at Ivan Anthony Gallery in Newton, Auckland.
Jess is an Illustrator and installation artist, originally from Tauranga, but now working and residing in Melbourne. She is currently undertaking a 2 year residency at the Melbourne Gallery. Her drawing and installation practice draws inspiration from science fiction, cosmology and shifting notions of reality.
This series of works combines patterning, objects and figures within very architectural settings. There is a very strong sense of perspective in the images, along with a large number of varied yogic references - adding to the spiritual feel of this series. Finally, a very limited pastel colour palette - heavy in blues and pinks - has been employed for these images.
This exhibition was made multi-disciplinary with the installation of the video work Mnemonic Pulse. This exceptional video work - animated by fellow kiwi video artist and animator Simon Ward - works to bring the “astral planes and shattered fragments of reality [within the images] to life.”
Mnemonic Pulse was an immersive video piece that captivates you as a viewer and draws you into Jess’s world. A pseudo 3D, post-2D production that is looped for continuous play and works somewhat like a never ending, narrative heavy ‘fly-through’ journey of all the illustrated images you see on the wall, as well as a few extras. The slow and purposeful animation creates an engaging experience and uses the strong perspective of the work to bring focus and light to specific details within the moving image. The hypnotic synthesised soundtrack is a mesmerising accompaniment to the symbolic, spiritual experience that it is watching the video, and the combination of moving image and mesmerising soundtrack seem to effectively transport you to another transcendental realm for a period of time.
Though not a permanent multi-media artist, this still image and video installation crossed media disciplines and combined the strengths of each discipline to create an effective, immersive experience, expanding on and furthering the understanding of the work. This show represents the growing desire to bring viewers into the artists world, or just into the here-and-now, causing viewers to pause, be immersed, and finally reflect. The exhibition of moving image and still images allows for connections and associations to be made that would never have been possible with still images alone.
Leaving this show I had a lot to take away. As a keen illustrator myself, and an artist beginning to look at digital media - specifically moving image, and image mapping installations - seeing the impeccable attention to detail in Jess’ one-off Copic-marker works, and how that could be successfully transferred to a digital medium in a progressive, immersive way was really inspiring. I hope to take from this example and look to how I can cross my analogous art into the digital realm, exploring a number of technologies and showing the work in a variety of different manners.
http://jessjohnson.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZXDl6X8-gA
