Friday Focus: Jennifer Douglas
Jennifer Douglas (b. 1975 Amersham, UK) lives and works in Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne. She studied at Newcastle University and completed her Masters in Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art in 2005. Exhibitions include Crab Walk, NGCA, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK; Confusion in her eyes that says it all, Maria Stenfors, London, UK; Tip of the Iceberg, Contemporary Art Society, London, UK; From Acanthus to Zebrawood Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee, UK; Beijing/Glasgow, Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Exit Strategy, Tramway, Glasgow, UK; The Games we Play, Barcsay Sala, Budapest; VANE Export, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden; You Shall Know Our Velocity, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK. Her work is represented in collections such as The Government Art Collection UK; Tyne and Wear Museums Collection, UK and the Simmons and Simmons, UK.
Can you tell me about your practice? How do you get started on a piece of work?
My practice is rooted in sculpture, experimenting with materials, their characteristics, properties and intricacies, to explore a visual language which re presents, disorientates and displaces. Often the materials I select are deemed obsolete or have been superseded by something more efficient. I’m drawn to those with a temporal, fragile or ephemeral quality, previously making work with newspaper ash, defunct lightbulbs, VHS tapes, carbon paper and metal leaf. Reference to time is a constant thread through the materials I choose, in how they are then read within another timeframe or context. In terms of ‘getting started’, this is led by a very hands-on exploration of the selected materials, to investigate the formal and conceptual possibilities.
Materiality is central to your practice, can you talk further about this?
How important is the choice of material in relation to realising the concept of your work?
Materials lead my enquiries and the realisation of concept directly relates to this investigation. I’ve a real interest in Minimalism and the Arte Povera movement and I endeavour to make works with everyday, unglamourous materials juxtaposed with those which have differing degrees and perceptions of value; re-appropriating and remixing these values. Exploring the world through this material investigation I strive to demand time of the viewer to look, to see and be curious about these fragile, quiet combinations and to consider the complexities they present formally and metaphorically.
The weekend before completing this text I visited the Hepworth to see the Sheila Hicks show, which was awesome, but also spent time with some of Hepworth’s works as well; this quote was quite timely!
‘The tools a sculptor uses become his friends, and they become intensely personal to one, the most precious extensions to one’s sight and touch’. 1961
Finally, is there anything new coming up that you would like to tell us about?
Part of my forthcoming research will include conquering the summits of Ben Nevis, Snowden and Scafell Pike, the UK’s 3 highest mountains. This will be physically demanding but visually and psychologically stimulating, enabling me to connect 2D representations of landscape through the embodied experience of walking in them, to consider form, materials and scale from a different perspective, allow freedom for imagination to run wild and invigorate the expansion of my sculptural practice. I can’t wait!
This new work I’m developing I’m planning to include in a really exciting exhibition called Slung over the bones of a collage, co-curated by Matthew Hearn and Paul Merrick opening end of October at Gallery North, University of Northumbria and 36 Gallery.
Instagram: jenjennadouglas
Images:
Golden Entropy 2018
120 x 150cm, Gold leaf, industrial paint on canvas, punctured, puckered and scratched
Entropic Paradise 2018
120 x 150cm
Silver leaf, industrial floor paint in canvas, punctured and scratched
Entropic Paradise 2018 (detail)
120 x 150cm
Nova 2021
60 x 70cm
Floor paint and silver leaf on canvas (scratched and puckered)
Burner 2021
60 x 70cm
Floor, acrylic and household paint, silver leaf on canvas (punctured)
Studio shot, apply metal leaf to surface
Studio shot, 2022