jennifer mcdonald's recent residency - more thoughts
On Monday 28 February Jennifer McDonald posted a new set of images from her recent residency.
It's hard to describe how excited these images made me. Perhaps the best demonstration are the comments I left immediately on Facebook under notification of the post:
Matt Dalby
and then a little later on the post itself:
Matt Dalby Says:
01/03/2011 at 12:00 AM
I've nicked four of the photos for this post to break up the text, but there are 49 new images on Jennifer's blog in total and I deliberately haven't chosen the best. If you haven't already done so go to Jennifer's blog now and have a look at the post.
So, my commentary.
Looking through the images they seem to me to fall into five broad groups. There are images of what I assume is the forest around the residency. There are images of insects - including two incredibly striking images of a beautiful moth that looks pretty large. There are images of the studio. There are images of art in the process of creation and completed. And there are sketches.
I'm going to concentrate mainly on the images of the art, and to a more limited extent the images of the studio and the sketches.
Among these images there appear to me to be three, again broad, thematic headings. Art that resembles sexual organs and orifices - either by direct resemblance or by analogy (pun intended). This usually appears to have been cast from fruit and vegetables. Art created from domestic objects and fittings. And finally art that bears resemblance to food or shit - sometimes both.
Neither my groupings of images nor the thematic headings I've gathered the art under represent anything other than my opinion. Once again, have a look at the images for yourself - this is about Jennifer's work, not my writing.
These domestic objects and fittings being human designed and made for specific single purposes are usually less ambiguous than the forms previously discussed.
Four main objects appear more than once each. A showerhead, what I take to be a box and which I have discussed in a previous post, combs, and gutter pipes.
The showerhead and combs have obvious associations with cleanliness and physical appearance and therefore overlap with aspects of the sexual. The showerhead and gutter pipes have equally obvious associations with hygiene and the removal of waste products and therefore overlap with the excretory functions of the body. All these discussed in the previous section.
There are overlaps with the section to come. Excretory associations are more central to this. But so too is food. So for instance the showerhead has fishbones coming from each of the points where water would come.
The showerhead is attached to a plastic tube which is then inserted into the internal cavity of one of the other objects. The obvious sexual connotation is very much diluted by the fact that the showerhead really just resembles a showerhead. Although the presence of fishbones mimicking the action of water, and the associations of hygiene might also make you think of pissing, bringing us back to the body.
I've discussed the box and combs at some length previously but it's worth recapping.
What I'm calling a box might not be. I have no idea of the scale. It might be a box to hold tissues, sweetmeats or something else. It might be an elaborately decorated sweet, or a soap. It might be a jelly mould. It could easily be none of these.
The box is cast severally, usually in two colours. Images of the cast and of one of Jennifer's sketches are also included in the photos. My immediate associations are boxes, soaps and sweets.
As boxes they might contain mundane items like tissues, more interesting items like sweets, or perhaps personal treasures, whether of actual monetary value or not. As soaps we're back to cleanliness and hygiene. Both a way to clean yourself and make yourself more attractive to others, putting us back among the bodies, and a way to remove dirt and smells, putting us back with excretory functions. As sweets we're obviously with food, whether for pleasure or sustenance.
The combs have more immediately recognisable associations with traditional concepts of feminine beauty. Hair often being seen as important to that. And here we unambiguously come up against ideas relating to the traditional perception of women by men. Both the expectation that women will present themselves attractively, and the perception that in concentrating on appearance women are vain and shallow. These are not my opinions.
There is another aspect to this. I think most people, male or female, will have memories of a parent (probably their mother) combing their hair as a child. This was both an intimate experience, and an often resented and painful one.
Again as hair is combed after washing and can be used to remove items from the hair there are cleanliness and hygiene associations.
Finally in this section I find the pipes particularly interesting as they overlap with both the other sections. The section of guttering or pipework that has been cast has obvious domestic/waste disposal/water supply/hygiene associations.
En-masse the pieces cast in pink (some with hairs embedded) arranged together on the floor have an obvious intestinal quality. This brings us to the consumption of food, to the body and its physical nature, and to the excretory functions of the human body.
And yet on examination they remain casts of a section of plastic pipe. Perhaps more than any other object they belong in each of the broad thematic categories I've identified for myself. After all if we're to take them as intestines or offal there's no reason they should be human.
I hope it's becoming apparent that as I've said. I don't regard the thematic categories as discrete or exclusive. There is no reason because something compellingly resembles a cock to forget that it may be derived from a vegetable. That a vegetable will be eaten, digested and shat out, and that a system of sewage will carry the shit away. In fact my categories make more sense if we think of them as overlapping, interdependent, and meaningless without the others.
In all honesty I think of this category a lot more broadly even than this, to include actual food or food-related items such as the fishbones, and aspects of digestion and disposal of excreted waste such as the plastic pipes both as water management and in resemblance to intestines.
Several of the images are - to me with no experience of casting anything in alginate - unreadable. I can't tell whether I'm looking at wax, at a failed cast, or something else altogether. It may also be that they have nothing at all to do with this process and relate to something quite different. They do appear to be part of the process of making the art though.
These images have an ambiguous nature for me. They look a little like food - in the first of them the brown liquidy substance with the firmer white substance might be a cheese like Brie gone mouldy and liquified. It might be a curry. Or again they might show an unhealthy shit or even an unusually smooth vomit.
The colours are fascinating and suggestive.
A couple of images later is what looks like some kind of ice with what might be shit or beans smeared on it. More closely it appears to be made up of those drupelets mentioned earlier. Dependent on the scale it might be cast from a berry or berries, or from fish roe. The texture links it to the berry/testicles mentioned previously, the resemblance to fish roe links it to the fishbones elsewhere.
Those fishbones - a waste product remaining after a meal - emerge from the showerhead. Partly in imitation of water.
What I'm referring to as the boxes again recall for me boxes you might put sweets in, or sweets or puddings in themselves. This is in part encouraged for me by the colours.
These colours, and the coloured beads like sugar cake decorations, make several objects resemble food. The pink wax orifice with beads looks both like a rectum or vagina or like a hole through an ice cream or other sweet food.Because of their shape and colour the rounded stone-like/breast implant-like objects might be breads, sweetmeats or jellies.
The photo of the studio immediately following this last image is interesting in this regard quite apart from the photos and sketches on the walls and colour coordination of the objects. There are several vegetables/fruits waiting to be eaten or cast. And if you look more closely there is what appears to be a cast of an arse, with a gold coloured shit (or arguably even cock) emerging from it.
More actual vegetables/fruit are shown arranged in conjunction with a chain as if part of planning a piece of work.
There are fishbones by themselves that appear to be in water, as well as prottruding from the showerhead, and from the berry/scrotum and testicles. One image of which shows an ant stuck on the end of one of the fishbones.
There are what I referred to previously as the gourds (although I'm very open to the possibility I might be wrong). These have been written about previously. They are seen in conjunction with the object from the poster with the orifice down its centre, with the combs, and in a sketch.
The obscure brown substance that might be a product of casting, that might be food, shit or vomit recurs.
And then we have those intestinal casts of the pipe.
From the external body and human physicality through the exterior human created environment - and the natural environment in the photos I haven't discussed - we've come to the internal body and processes. One of the ways, through the growing, consumption and ultimate excretion of food, that we relate to the environment. In this sense the three categories I've identified if they have any validity at all can be seen to be interdependent.
But on the other hand this breaking into categories is just a way for me to simplify my thinking about the art and approach it in an orderly manner without chasing all over the map. Ultimately the forms comes down to forms and textures and colours. To objects in space with particular density and weight. Objects that relate to the space they're in, to the other objects they're placed in relationship to, to Jennifer's previous work, and the original objects from which they derive.
That is, the art is beautiful and compelling in its own right if you find it so however you come to it. The initial visceral response is just as valid as any theoretical justification or speculation you or I might come up with. I love the work. It has all kind of carnal and physical associations for me. It conjures up food, but also fun - fairgrounds and parties.
I'm a little concerned I've lost track of the energy, the carnality, the sense of fun, the exuberance of growth and colour in the work through this post. That I've run the risk of crushing the joy right out of what is very exciting work that made me (and I know others) very happy indeed. That's definitely not my intention. I love this work and want to share that enjoyment - that's why I've kept linking you back to Jennifer's post and blog.
These images very much changed my perception of the art Jennifer created during her residency. They both made me more aware of smaller details I hadn't noticed before. Or which weren't visible. And they gave me an even greater sense of the physical heft of the work.
The photos also emphasised even more than the previous set of images the broader range of the colour palette Jennifer deployed than was apparent before. A more palpable sense of fun is evident too.
I intended to post my response sooner. However I think the introduction gives you some idea of the reason for the delay. There are so many images , the work is so good, and so completely changed my understanding of the art Jennifer created that it's been hard to make sense of it and discipline my thoughts.
What I had to do was go through Jennifer's post photo by photo noting down my first thoughts and then grouping the images by recurring themes before starting to write. A copy of the notes I made can be seen below.
But before that - you won't get any real sense of the art from my blethering or only just the four images here. Once again you have to look at Jennifer's post (and stay to check out the rest of her blog) to get a real sense of the work.
It's hard to describe how excited these images made me. Perhaps the best demonstration are the comments I left immediately on Facebook under notification of the post:
Matt Dalby
There's some incredible stuff there - really strongly physical and striking. I love it Really want to write a more detailed response - not whether to do it in a comment on yr blog, in a message or post something on my blog - maybe a bit of all three.
It's great tho, love it. Now get off the internet and enjoy yrself!
Matt xx
It's great tho, love it. Now get off the internet and enjoy yrself!
Matt xx
28 February at 09:41 ·
and then a little later on the post itself:
Matt Dalby Says:
01/03/2011 at 12:00 AM
I said I’d comment on this over on the Facebook.
The images here of your work give it a genuine and striking physical – at times carnal – presence. The minute I first went through the post I could feel it changing the way I’d thought about the work I’d seen so far – including some of the images in the previous post – which were surprising enough + pretty exciting.
I aim to comment more fully on my blog but I think that’s actually going to take a couple of days – there’s a lot to tackle here.
That moth is incredible – I take it that’s a genuine live moth? What sort of size? Scale’s pretty tough to judge in some of these photos but I think that’s a strength of the work. And given the disorientation of what’s natural, what’s manufactured, what’s the art, what’s edible + what isn’t, what some of the forms actually are it fits in perfectly with the experience.
A lot of the pieces do seem to have a genuine physical heft to them, like detached limbs, outsize vegetables. That’s emphasised by the heavy chains. But then the colours, the details that look like sweets or cake decoration and the knitwear kind of undercut that. They also bring a humanity and a humour to the work. At the same time also looking weirdly sexual or like condoms.
There’s a lot lot more to say – I’ve barely even started. It’s tremendous work. It’s also impressive that you’ve walked away from it because you say it’s not the kind of work you want to be doing. To put that amount of effort in under very trying circumstances without support, to finish that amount of work, and then to be able to destroy it + leave it behind is a real testament to your strength.
I hope the rest of your time in India is amazing + that it’s not too disappointing coming back to the UK. Have a great time + good luck, you deserve it.
Matt xxx
I've nicked four of the photos for this post to break up the text, but there are 49 new images on Jennifer's blog in total and I deliberately haven't chosen the best. If you haven't already done so go to Jennifer's blog now and have a look at the post.
So, my commentary.
Looking through the images they seem to me to fall into five broad groups. There are images of what I assume is the forest around the residency. There are images of insects - including two incredibly striking images of a beautiful moth that looks pretty large. There are images of the studio. There are images of art in the process of creation and completed. And there are sketches.
I'm going to concentrate mainly on the images of the art, and to a more limited extent the images of the studio and the sketches.
Among these images there appear to me to be three, again broad, thematic headings. Art that resembles sexual organs and orifices - either by direct resemblance or by analogy (pun intended). This usually appears to have been cast from fruit and vegetables. Art created from domestic objects and fittings. And finally art that bears resemblance to food or shit - sometimes both.
Neither my groupings of images nor the thematic headings I've gathered the art under represent anything other than my opinion. Once again, have a look at the images for yourself - this is about Jennifer's work, not my writing.
I'm starting with what for me is the most obvious and striking set of resemblances. That of sexual organs and orifices.
A word of caution - I'm not suggesting that if something RESEMBLES a cock or an arsehole that it's meant to BE a cock or an arsehole, or that it can only be read in relation to the organ or orifice. I'm suggesting that the resemblance is too obvious to ignore, but that there are also resemblances and meanings beyond that.
Specifically there seems to be no attempt to disguise the objects from which the art has been cast, and no attempt to disguise the materials used. So something cast from a vegetable in coloured wax with beads embedded in it and attached to a chain also has the associations related to those objects and materials.
Not only that, but whatever personal and artistic ideas Jennifer has envisioned for the work. So there is the fact that many of the pieces are in pairs or groups linked predominantly by chains, but also by rope, hair and other materials.
Many of the works are hung - this may be a practical concern, or it may reference the way food is hung in greengrocers and butchers, although chains aren't used that often in those places. The chains may be meant to echo the chains on incense censers swung in Catholic and other churches.
These are speculations. The intention is to emphasise that the narrow aspects I'm focussing on are not the most important or defining features of the work. They are simply what struck me most powerfully. I will attempt to go beyond them from time to time.
Sometimes the resemblances are quite closely implied at other times they're less direct - analogies rather than resemblances.
Several of the vegetable/fruit casts resemble cocks - and by extension dildos/vibrators - although usually on a larger than human scale. More like arms or lower legs really. One object already previously written about and featured on the poster for the exhibition resembles a large, rough cock with vastly expanded urethra. That internal cavity could be taken for the vagina or rectum - especially given the proximity and in one case insertion of matching shapes.
Although it's not possible to judge scale some rounded stone-like casts resemble breast implants - or bread or sweetmeats. They might even (extending from the resemblance to breasts) be taken for buttocks.
Some of the phallic objects have woollen hats on the end - and in one case a different coloured tip - suggesting the glans penis. In other cases the woollen hats are longer suggesting condoms.
But given the scale of these objects and the fact of woollen clothing being used - in at least one case a balaclava - they also resemble cartoon babies.
Another fruit cast superficially resembles a scrotum and testicles. Although closer examination reveals a surface of what Wikipedia tells me are drupelets - something you'd definitely see a doctor about.
One of the sketches shows what might be a plant, a fruit or vegetable, part of an insect, or even the vulva.
There is a photo of what appears to be a dried umbilical cord, but might equally be seaweed or some other organic product - animal or vegetable.
Finally the item with the different coloured tip has a rope attached to it making it resemble a (completely non-absorbant) tampon.
What's the result of this accumulation of objects that resemble bits of the human body? For me it's a kind of switching back and forwards between the obvious resemblance and the other aspects of each object.
For instance one large phallic cast being held up to view is pink and has blue threads running close to the surface like vein - heightening the resemblance to a cock. But then you become aware that it is about the size of an adult forearm. You might take it to resemble that. However the even thickness along the length made me think more of the large Paschal candle lit in church at Easter.
The colours and presence of beads make me think of foods. Ice cream in particular, but also ices. Sweet foods certainly. Massively oversized jellybeans perhaps. The colours and the occasional woollen hat bring us back to the very abstract semi-resemblance to simplified cartoons of babies.
Or as I've already mentioned a few times, arms and legs. Although the sexual (and excretory) connotations can't easily be ignored there's another effect of simple human physicality removed from that function. The apparent heft and evident size of many of the pieces are like disembodied bits of limbs.
And of course since there is no real attempt to hide the origins of the forms they also resemble the vegetables and fruit they derive from.
Again remembering the scale and colours and the fact many are hung many of the phallic objects could be balloons. Or conceivably inflated condoms (bringing us back to sex) or large sausages.
They are all of these, and none of them. And more besides. Entirely innocent of sexual connotations they're objects I would have loved playing with and chewing on as a child.
In fact now as an adult I'd love to smell, hold and taste these objects.
Actual domestic objects and fittings, or casts of the same are the next most prominent component of the work for me.
Another brief note here before I go further. Not only are my categories not meant to be definitive they are also not meant to be exclusive and discrete from each other. They overlap. I hope this emphasises the provisional and personal nature of my commentary.
Again look at the images for yourself, and at those in previous posts on the blog to make up your own mind. I'd be delighted for you to disagree and tell me so in the comments or an email. That includes you, Jen.
These domestic objects and fittings being human designed and made for specific single purposes are usually less ambiguous than the forms previously discussed.
Four main objects appear more than once each. A showerhead, what I take to be a box and which I have discussed in a previous post, combs, and gutter pipes.
The showerhead and combs have obvious associations with cleanliness and physical appearance and therefore overlap with aspects of the sexual. The showerhead and gutter pipes have equally obvious associations with hygiene and the removal of waste products and therefore overlap with the excretory functions of the body. All these discussed in the previous section.
There are overlaps with the section to come. Excretory associations are more central to this. But so too is food. So for instance the showerhead has fishbones coming from each of the points where water would come.
The showerhead is attached to a plastic tube which is then inserted into the internal cavity of one of the other objects. The obvious sexual connotation is very much diluted by the fact that the showerhead really just resembles a showerhead. Although the presence of fishbones mimicking the action of water, and the associations of hygiene might also make you think of pissing, bringing us back to the body.
I've discussed the box and combs at some length previously but it's worth recapping.
What I'm calling a box might not be. I have no idea of the scale. It might be a box to hold tissues, sweetmeats or something else. It might be an elaborately decorated sweet, or a soap. It might be a jelly mould. It could easily be none of these.
The box is cast severally, usually in two colours. Images of the cast and of one of Jennifer's sketches are also included in the photos. My immediate associations are boxes, soaps and sweets.
As boxes they might contain mundane items like tissues, more interesting items like sweets, or perhaps personal treasures, whether of actual monetary value or not. As soaps we're back to cleanliness and hygiene. Both a way to clean yourself and make yourself more attractive to others, putting us back among the bodies, and a way to remove dirt and smells, putting us back with excretory functions. As sweets we're obviously with food, whether for pleasure or sustenance.
The combs have more immediately recognisable associations with traditional concepts of feminine beauty. Hair often being seen as important to that. And here we unambiguously come up against ideas relating to the traditional perception of women by men. Both the expectation that women will present themselves attractively, and the perception that in concentrating on appearance women are vain and shallow. These are not my opinions.
There is another aspect to this. I think most people, male or female, will have memories of a parent (probably their mother) combing their hair as a child. This was both an intimate experience, and an often resented and painful one.
Again as hair is combed after washing and can be used to remove items from the hair there are cleanliness and hygiene associations.
Finally in this section I find the pipes particularly interesting as they overlap with both the other sections. The section of guttering or pipework that has been cast has obvious domestic/waste disposal/water supply/hygiene associations.
En-masse the pieces cast in pink (some with hairs embedded) arranged together on the floor have an obvious intestinal quality. This brings us to the consumption of food, to the body and its physical nature, and to the excretory functions of the human body.
And yet on examination they remain casts of a section of plastic pipe. Perhaps more than any other object they belong in each of the broad thematic categories I've identified for myself. After all if we're to take them as intestines or offal there's no reason they should be human.
I hope it's becoming apparent that as I've said. I don't regard the thematic categories as discrete or exclusive. There is no reason because something compellingly resembles a cock to forget that it may be derived from a vegetable. That a vegetable will be eaten, digested and shat out, and that a system of sewage will carry the shit away. In fact my categories make more sense if we think of them as overlapping, interdependent, and meaningless without the others.
Finally we come to food that resembles food, or shit, or both.
In all honesty I think of this category a lot more broadly even than this, to include actual food or food-related items such as the fishbones, and aspects of digestion and disposal of excreted waste such as the plastic pipes both as water management and in resemblance to intestines.
Several of the images are - to me with no experience of casting anything in alginate - unreadable. I can't tell whether I'm looking at wax, at a failed cast, or something else altogether. It may also be that they have nothing at all to do with this process and relate to something quite different. They do appear to be part of the process of making the art though.
These images have an ambiguous nature for me. They look a little like food - in the first of them the brown liquidy substance with the firmer white substance might be a cheese like Brie gone mouldy and liquified. It might be a curry. Or again they might show an unhealthy shit or even an unusually smooth vomit.
The colours are fascinating and suggestive.
A couple of images later is what looks like some kind of ice with what might be shit or beans smeared on it. More closely it appears to be made up of those drupelets mentioned earlier. Dependent on the scale it might be cast from a berry or berries, or from fish roe. The texture links it to the berry/testicles mentioned previously, the resemblance to fish roe links it to the fishbones elsewhere.
Those fishbones - a waste product remaining after a meal - emerge from the showerhead. Partly in imitation of water.
What I'm referring to as the boxes again recall for me boxes you might put sweets in, or sweets or puddings in themselves. This is in part encouraged for me by the colours.
These colours, and the coloured beads like sugar cake decorations, make several objects resemble food. The pink wax orifice with beads looks both like a rectum or vagina or like a hole through an ice cream or other sweet food.Because of their shape and colour the rounded stone-like/breast implant-like objects might be breads, sweetmeats or jellies.
The photo of the studio immediately following this last image is interesting in this regard quite apart from the photos and sketches on the walls and colour coordination of the objects. There are several vegetables/fruits waiting to be eaten or cast. And if you look more closely there is what appears to be a cast of an arse, with a gold coloured shit (or arguably even cock) emerging from it.
More actual vegetables/fruit are shown arranged in conjunction with a chain as if part of planning a piece of work.
There are fishbones by themselves that appear to be in water, as well as prottruding from the showerhead, and from the berry/scrotum and testicles. One image of which shows an ant stuck on the end of one of the fishbones.
There are what I referred to previously as the gourds (although I'm very open to the possibility I might be wrong). These have been written about previously. They are seen in conjunction with the object from the poster with the orifice down its centre, with the combs, and in a sketch.
The obscure brown substance that might be a product of casting, that might be food, shit or vomit recurs.
And then we have those intestinal casts of the pipe.
From the external body and human physicality through the exterior human created environment - and the natural environment in the photos I haven't discussed - we've come to the internal body and processes. One of the ways, through the growing, consumption and ultimate excretion of food, that we relate to the environment. In this sense the three categories I've identified if they have any validity at all can be seen to be interdependent.
But on the other hand this breaking into categories is just a way for me to simplify my thinking about the art and approach it in an orderly manner without chasing all over the map. Ultimately the forms comes down to forms and textures and colours. To objects in space with particular density and weight. Objects that relate to the space they're in, to the other objects they're placed in relationship to, to Jennifer's previous work, and the original objects from which they derive.
That is, the art is beautiful and compelling in its own right if you find it so however you come to it. The initial visceral response is just as valid as any theoretical justification or speculation you or I might come up with. I love the work. It has all kind of carnal and physical associations for me. It conjures up food, but also fun - fairgrounds and parties.
I'm a little concerned I've lost track of the energy, the carnality, the sense of fun, the exuberance of growth and colour in the work through this post. That I've run the risk of crushing the joy right out of what is very exciting work that made me (and I know others) very happy indeed. That's definitely not my intention. I love this work and want to share that enjoyment - that's why I've kept linking you back to Jennifer's post and blog.
These images very much changed my perception of the art Jennifer created during her residency. They both made me more aware of smaller details I hadn't noticed before. Or which weren't visible. And they gave me an even greater sense of the physical heft of the work.
The photos also emphasised even more than the previous set of images the broader range of the colour palette Jennifer deployed than was apparent before. A more palpable sense of fun is evident too.
I intended to post my response sooner. However I think the introduction gives you some idea of the reason for the delay. There are so many images , the work is so good, and so completely changed my understanding of the art Jennifer created that it's been hard to make sense of it and discipline my thoughts.
What I had to do was go through Jennifer's post photo by photo noting down my first thoughts and then grouping the images by recurring themes before starting to write. A copy of the notes I made can be seen below.
But before that - you won't get any real sense of the art from my blethering or only just the four images here. Once again you have to look at Jennifer's post (and stay to check out the rest of her blog) to get a real sense of the work.
Kinds of images - landscape / insects / studio / art complete + in process of creation / sketches
Themes + resemblances - food / sexual organs + orifices (direct resemblance + analogy) - often actually fruit / domestic objects + fittings /
Other thoughts - pink colour is used a lot /
01 Landscape
02 Grasses
03 Butterfly
04 Butterfly ejaculate?
05 Almost food-like art
06 Close-up of food like art
07 Like ice-cream + shit, beans, eggs (especially fish)
08 Object like cock/vagina/arsehole with slab
09 Object like cock/vagina/arsehole with gourd
10 Showerhead with fish bones
11 Object like cock/vagina/arsehole + showerhead with fishbones from front
12 Object like cock/vagina/arsehole + showerhead with fishbones from side
13 Work in studio
14 Pink cast - hard to judge size. Reminiscent of interior of organs
15 Cast of 'box' - thought of sweets earlier
16 Sketch of 'box'
17 Versions of the 'box' in shades of pink
18 Pink wax orifice with beads - made me think of arsehole - beads like cake decoration
19 Rounded stone-like (breast implant) wax objects with intense colour 'pools' - even like jellies
20 Studio with photos, sketches, objects, food, colour coordination - cast of arse with gold shit (or even cock)
21 Wax vegetable or fruit (or like limb or cock) on chain with beads + woollen hat
22 Three wax vegetables/cocks - two pink, one with a woollen hat that both resembles the glans or makes it look like a featureless cartoon baby - the third is blue and filled with beads and with a wool hat/covering half of it
23 Four more wax vegetables/cocks with beads. A large white one with a pink balaclava. A small pink one with tear shaped items on the surface rather than beads and a white woollen glans/hat
24 Assorted materials + broken bits
25 Two more wax vegetables/cocks with woollen covers, bits of materials + some colour samples
26 Electric hob + ?molten wax in shallow dish?
27 Fish bones in ?water?
28 What appear to be two actual fruit/vegetables arranged with a chain which doesn't seem to be attached to them
29 Wax vegetable/cock with chain and wax fruit that very much resembles testicles from a distance. It seems to be a fruit closer up since if your testicles actually had that kind of surface you'd see the doctor. It has fishbones sticking from it
30 White wax fruit/testicles with fishbones, chain nearby
31 Close-up of same showing an ant on the end of one fishbone
32 Sketch of two ?gourds? touching
33 'Gourds', combs and hair
34 Front view of beautiful moth
35 Top view of beautiful moth
36 Sketch of fruit/vegetable/plant/insect part that might also be vulva
37 Cast/wax/food/shit
38 What looks like dried umbilical cord
39 Plug in cast on table littered with hair + wax
40 Plug as before with chain attached
41 Large wax object with long irregular orifice like a vagina - hair coming from it
42 Drawing of Jen with a cast fruit on a chain
43 Opened cast of a vegetable/fruit/cock in brown with a pink tip. On a pink rope, a little like a tampon
44 Gutter pipe bend being cast in bucket
45 Broken cast of gutter pipe with hair embedded in part of it
46 Wax vegetable/fruit/cock (albeit the thickness of an adult arm) with blue threads through it like veins
47 Broken and distorted casts of the gutter pipe bend with hair embedded arranged together like oversized intestines spilled on the ground
48 Details of the gutter pipe bend casts
49 Details of the gutter pipe bend casts
Comments
Have realised my own thinking of the work is probably abit egocentric... or maybe not egocentric but artistcentric. With the work I can pretty much only see the original feeling I was trying to capture or the original thing which I wanted to stop and mark out as important or engaging to me, it's pretty easy to forget the actual visual or physical fact of the work. In many ways this is why I feel a reluctance to talk about the work, about how much to say, don't want to wreck the fragile connotations of the viewer.
I plan to commit something to words myself soon, and to respond to the associations you have brought up.
Thanks so much, it feels great to have the work engaged with in such a way, and also to feel such a massive amount of support.
Jen xx
I hope what I've come up with isn't totally unrecognisable. I also hope that people reading don't take my subjective response for some kind of definitive statement.
More importantly I hope it pushes people toward looking at the actual work.
Matt xx
Any clarity is purely thru trying to discipline my reactions. I could have written exactly as much and made no sense to anyone.