︎Interlude 1:
Gerda Scheepers, Claire Johnson and Ben Orkin (all Cape Town) discuss presence, colour and abstraction.
Chat transcipt:
Chat transcipt:
7/2/2021
Claire:
Hello! In anticipation for tomorrow shall we share images and any necessary info on our work for the show for context?
16:36
Ben:
Yes. I was also thinking! Perhaps we each share one of the pieces we’ll be showing and a brief intro into what we were thinking.
16:37
Claire:
Perfect!
16:38
Here is the text I put together for my proposal...
17:54
17:54
And snaps of the final piece. The total size of each canvas was 900 x 1300mm (so 1800mm wide in total as a diptych).
17:57
17:57
7/3/2021
Ben:
This is beautiful Claire!
09:24
‘Preserving a presence that speaks about an absence’ perfectly sums it up. There is definitely a sense that these forms are a translation or reinterpretation of something which was once there. In my eyes it almost appears now as a map or a city from above. I also enjoy how these forms become like symbols which may represent something else. They provide just enough information to suggest so many different things. How do you think symbol plays into your work?
09:29
This is one of the pieces I will be showing titled ‘Different people’. My work is also a translation of something real/imagined. I create symmetrically shaped vessels whose forms are a translation of gay intimacy where figures reflect each other. In this case I was thinking about two figures who are separating from each other and so I sculpted two head profiles moving away from each other.
09:35
Ceramics is very important as I am creating hollow vessels and vessels hold things. It is also a material which I’m very familiar with as my mom is a ceramicist so I’ve been around clay for as long as I can remember. I can make work about things which sometimes make me feel a little uncomfortable with a material that I’m very comfortable with but don’t have complete control over.
09:38
Gerda:
Morning both of you!Just posting my work from show first before responding.
09:39
I only have studio shots. My daughter for scale :)
09:40
The painting i am showing is called "how many ribs"Its from a series of paintings in the same format , about 1,6m wide and 2m high, where I start the paintings with ideas or images of emotional or psychological spaces. The size was chosen to relate to a non specific body size, one could imagine to enter these spaces on them. They are based on both actual spaces, like photos of the interiors of places of faith like temples, cathedrals - or in this case the actual chest as holding space for all kinds of emotions, anxieties and euphorias. I chose to paint that through a T-shirt form and set of ribs, to abstract it by creating a kind of light architecture to represent that space. I liked the T-shirt for connecting it back to a social space too through fashion. For me abstraction is very much a method and form is a tool in that. At the time of painting it I vaguely remembered having 2 sets of 6 ribs, so I painted 6 a side. I googled it after. We have 24.
09:40
Claire:
Thank you! This is such a great insight - I have never viewed these ‘aerially’ - such an exciting vantage point!I love working with objects with a source history or context. In the transition between the ‘thing’ and the representation of the thing, a new layer carries overs on the original object. At this point there is renewed composition or form and what it is so liberating is that at this point I have no more control over how it is read. I love handing over to the viewer so that own schemas, symbols and experience can project back onto the what the work is communicating to them - so the two worlds of symbols combine.
09:50
Gosh this colour is exceptional - feels so incredibly vulnerable. Ben I really loved what Lindsey said in your last solo write up about the symmetry and how this also links to community, as well as reciprocity and how that in itself can be unbalanced (one side taking too much). It must be incredibly difficult to actual produce a symmetrical piece with such a complex and organic form? How does this inform add to your process? Is there a sense of control, a sense of challenge, is sense of risk?
09:55
Ben:
Beautiful! It’s also very exciting yes when you release something into the world that the world hasn’t seen before or doesn’t recognize and it responds based on what the world knows and has seen before ;)
10:02
We all work abstractly. Does anyone else find that it’s easier to release very personal feelings or ways of thinking into the world by creating abstractions of these feelings or making things which suggest so many other things?
10:04
Claire:
Hi Gerda - this scale is incredible and I really love how the reservation in the opacity of colour makes it monolithic but almost more like a cloud mass rather than a rock form. It feel permeable, like you say, you can 'enter' the space - or you are welcomed in. The architectural link between the ribs and hallowed spaces is really powerful - superhuman scale as well as deeply intimate scale - external locus of control (faith) and internal locus of control (physiological and emotional space of the heart).
10:06
Claire:
10:07
Ben:
Thank you for this lovely feedback. It’s something I’ve thought about before since it’s impossible to create something totally symmetrical by hand. Often one side is bigger than the other or skewer etc. I aldehyde attempt to have as much control as possible because my work is partly about controlling my life/ understanding relationships but the material doesn’t allow that control at all. You have to build ceramics in a very particular way and also anything can happen to your work when it is fired in the kiln. It’s freeing. It’s also like a collaboration between two parts, the maker and the material.
10:09
Claire:
@Gerda some material gathering questions here
10:10
Ben:
Beautifully said. I agree. I definitely get a sense of it being some kind of holy space or even text which is welcoming you in.
10:11
Claire:
10:11
Ben:
Yes I like that. It’s abstraction not abstract. I work in the same way. It starts somewhere specific, but becomes it’s own thing.
10:13
Claire:
So incredible that there is so much room for chance and fate in this process - its so much like human nature - striving to match a certain level/goal but really there is only so much that one can control, and I guess that is the magic of being human and being alive! It also an interesting facet that with a ceramic piece you essentially build a relationship with it - you conceptualise it, form it, nurture it, fall in love with it and try perfect it - but at any point there is a chance of disaster (in the kiln etc), but the risk is totally worth it everytime
10:17
Claire:
I find a structured starting point so liberating. I find a 'blank slate' terrifying :)
10:19
Ben:
Exactly 💙
10:42
Gerda:
Hi Claire im going to start here and get back to a few other comments . Im going to be a bit slower because with todler. Ive chosen the skill of sewing and the materials and forms of domestic spaces and clothing as a sculptural medium, very much because it was the skill my mother taught my at a very young age, so it had that familiarity Ben also spoke of, but of course its a skill thats been passed on from mothers, mostly to daughters but not only, for centuries so i wanted to affirm that as a very valid sculpural medium for myself. I have a sort of limited material “palette” in it, mostly pre dyed cottons in order to be able to “Apply” it as artistic medium very similar to the reduced toolkit of say painting: paint, brush, canvas. So therefore i can go out and buy very flat materials without problem, very much like buying paint.Where our process becomes similar i think is in the studio, where i also work with remnants and left overs a lot. Reaffirming the shape of a cutoff has those metaphorical associations i value too. I keep everything that falls on the floor, sometimes using a tiny shape after years. Sometimes it a mere gesture of “doing something “ i use to produce offcuts - like sewing pjs for my daughter when im stuck. It becomes a meditation on being alive that produces form somehow. And like you both also mentioned in other ways, its an abstraction that is still anchored in the realm of every day life that im interested in
10:57
Yes I also love the tension Claire mentioned in the effort to create the manual mirror image. It holds that tension of effort / control and the loss of it so well and the persistence of the almost “ordinary “ vessel opening i find roots it back to the language of functional objects( daily life things) in a beautifully ambiguous way
11:16
Claire:
No rush at all, organic pace is good :)This is fascinating - I love how you are able to work with fabric as a material - and how there is so much significance woven in through the maternal skills passed down. It such a beautiful connection (same with you @ben - the confidence you spoke of in the skills you have been nurtured with). I absolutely love how you work with remnants to create something in the in between times - I often get so so stuck, I have no idea how to work through that stuckness - this is a really interesting technique. I would love to try it myself.
11:18
I also love the intimacy of the everyday life as a key grounding in your work - its really these spaces that fill our worlds and define the rhythm of our lives - and they are so deeply layered and nuanced
11:24
Ben:
Beautiful Gerda. Your process seems very rewarding to you because you’re thinking and working with very familiar materials and spaces.
11:31
Claire:
On Mornés point - I was thinking about colour for all of us - @Ben I like how you used a spectrum of blues in your last show - like lindsey said - ranging from expansive, to demanding to shooting .. its incredible what tonality can evoke. @Gerda here to you play a lot with opacity, whether in paint, or materials that let through. I find colour quite daunting - I almost always feel regret as soon as I have made a mark over the ground colour I have chosen. I actually feel like its an obstacle at times rather than catalyst. It feels like you both have a more healthy relationship with colour :)
11:46
Ben:
To be honest I don’t know how either of you do what you do. I struggle understanding and working with flat surfaces/ composition so painting is not my thing. That’s one reason why I work with a single colour on a piece, but I also think it’s easier on the eye to read my forms when they’re in a single colour. If not, then it can become a little too loud for the eye. When working with a group of sculptures in a space I also like to stick to this rule by working with variations of a single colour.
11:57
Blue was important to me, and still is.
11:58
Claire, I think your use of colour is very different to mine in that you’re working with contrasting colours which emphasize your forms. This is very effective and I think gives your work a clarity and boldness. Is this intentional?
12:00
Claire:
the singular colour makes so much sense - its makes the form the focus - one really needs to get to grips the forms rather than simply admiring them
12:00
Ben:
Thank you Claire!
12:02
Claire:
its so funny because it is what ends up happening but it feels so foreign to me to use such bold colours. I almost keep experimenting with colour until the composition feels 'full'. or maybe a saturation point where the balance feels right. So many of my paintings have layers of entirely different colours beneath which I have decided to paint over - I moved from working with acrylic to working with oil so that I didn't have to commit to anything
12:02
Ben:
That’s so interesting. Also thinking more about maps and land (like I mentioned earlier). If you are working with layers of colours it’s almost like how land is a build up of layers of earth on top of each other. Your work is a reflection of the earth we stand on in a way.
12:06
Claire:
12:12
Talking about Patina - Ben when you started bringing texture - how did this evolve the conceptualising of the pieces? What role does this texture play?
12:13
Also - the pink you chose - is there a vulnerability in this, or is that my interpretation?
12:13
Ben:
Wow! Beautiful. I love how you involve others in your practice
12:23
All of my pieces have a completely smoothed surface and then I apply a glaze onto that. Different glazes can have slightly different textures and evoke different kinds of things. I’ve been thinking more strongly about the role of glaze in my work and particularly in relation to my the current body of work I’m building for an upcoming solo exhibition. The glaze is the seal/ the barrier/ the layer of protection which protects the porous clay from the outside world. Different glazes have different levels of strength in this seal. This particular glaze is very glossy and any liquid that passes accross it’s surface would slip right off. So the form is protected.
12:27
My upcoming exhibition focuses on barriers in intimacy in relation to the gay AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s. There are many barriers in intimacy because of it but there are also barriers within the gay community itself. There are the barriers between the past and present and the different generations of gays who exist today.
12:31
Claire:
How wonderful is that contradiction - that which appears like skin that to me and invokes such an intimacy and vulnerability, is it fact hyperprotective and repellant - so great how evocative the material is!
12:31
The potency of this concept and medium is exceptional. Wow, goosenbump
12:33
goosebumps*
12:33
Ben:
You’re so sweet. Thank you Claire!
12:41
Claire:
❤️❤️
12:42
Gerda:
Yes I think we all apply colour very differently. I imagine the glazes also change a lot in the kiln so there is some element of surprise. To a degree I actually keep my colours explictly random in some compositions.I like imitating the partly unchosen setup of a family, or a neighborhood in a bigger nucleus, as compositional cues - where different elements reside together and it creates very active edges or boundaries/bridges between the different elements. So I often use what is at hand to withdraw myself from curating that moment , be it paint , fabric, or the pencils that happen to be sharp. so not at all a painterly way with colour - Claire i think you have quite a painterly consideration with colour. I sometimes choose a colour for specific associations they might have in a societal space, but what i also think is colour brings with a huge emotive aspect
13:02
Claire:
your description here to colour is so refreshing - I really love the way it is absorbed into a bigger consideration of vision. Almost perhaps like seeing the colour as character or a quality rather than a visual representation of tone.
13:12
Gerda:
Thanks Ben, its funny you say that because I often hate my process 😅 but ive learned to live with my method haha. I think i hope the process is rewarding to the work which would be enough for me. I guess most of my pieces have a very precarious state inherent to them which i try to keep very close to a possible “collapse” , and the process that it involves keeps me pretty close to it in thought too, which i find very exhausting but yes its rewarding if it works!
13:14
Ben:
Yes I like that. And I definitely feel that the process is visible on the outcome of your work which brings the viewer closer to what you may be thinking when you’re making the work.
13:25
Gerda:
Thanks Claire, yes you’re so sweet and eloquent :) and yes thats very much how i use colour , i Think more about visual representation of tone when i colour my hair than i do when I paint. Thinking back to what you said of your own use of colour and how the sight of it sometimes feel alienating , then the process of changing the colours with new layers fits with a very linguistic association i have with your works. Where the shapes linger almost where letters do before we know their meaning and understand their abilities . So writing and rewriting till its written “ right” makes sense to me
14:32
That s a nice thought that it could bring in the viewer. As I also need to start from the personal but always hope to abstract from it enough again in the process to make it accessible for others.
14:36
Ben:
Very nice
14:39
Claire:
Thank Gerda! This is fascinating - I really love how we all see something like colour in such different ways - its so exciting also to imagine I might view it from another lens (maybe that would take the stress away)! Your literary association is so nice to consider - it talks to the human instinct to close gaps we see to make meaning, which is what I am so interested in. Where you see certain letters and knit them together into a word (like playing bananagrams :). This is so relevant to my process - it cant be hypothesised - it just has to be done, and it either works or it doesn't (at least in painting).
14:40
I don't think there is a work of yours that I have seen which haven't instinctively just 'gotten'. There is a familiarity - something I can connect with that I find so tangible and relatable (never abstracted beyond the point that one can relate). I think the same with your @ben - the anthropomorphic nature means I dont have to try and understand it, I can access it on a deeper level because I feel I instinctively (almost in a primitive brain sense) understand the context
14:45
Ben:
Ah Claire. Thank you for your beautiful insightful words!
16:58
I’ve loved learning more about each of your works and the processes you follow ❤️
16:59
Gerda:
Yes
19:02
Same. Hope to meet sometime. xx
19:03
Claire:
💛💛💛
22:37