Archive for the ‘Spain’ Category

Art & Recycling. Textiles & Mixed media.

Friday, January 18th, 2019

Art and recycling goes hand-in-hand in the textile and mixed- media side of my arts practice.

My artworks are often created from old, discarded clothing, vintage and antique textiles, papers and found objects. I enjoy making use of stuff that has had a life already; a life that is often purely functional and as far removed from ‘art’ as you can imagine.

I’ve been recycling all my life to make art. As a child, I pulled apart, old clothing and nylon stockings “I used to collect fabric waste from mum’s sewing and knitting basket, making wall hangings out of that.” Nowadays, I cut up my own clothing and others, antique quilts, vintage linens, fancywork and men’s suits.

The process of searching and collecting materials, is also, a very important part of my art’s making. It may take weeks, months, even years, to find a piece that talks to me. Most of the time though, a fragment of fabric, clothing or object, will trigger off the idea. I collect and document many of the pieces I find, by labeling or remembering, its history of when & where it was found. This gives me another layer to work with.

The search for materials has taken me to many weird and wonderful places over the years.

The sometimes, dodgy, back streets of cities, in Barcelona, Italy and France. Markets and charity shops in Australia, France and England. Underground spaces, abandoned buildings, coast lines and vacant beaches. Friends, family and strangers, have also, donated materials to use in my work.

By transforming old, recycled and reused materials, it enriches the stories I like to tell in my contemporary art and gives a new life, to materials destined to be wasted and thrown away.

Yering Station Art Gallery & Spaces Below

Wednesday, April 11th, 2018

Current Exhibition in the Main Gallery at Yering Station –  10 April – 20 May.

JENNY DAVIS — SPACES BELOW

Wallmatter, Oil paint on canvas, 140 x 180 cm

‘Spaces Below’ is a visual and textural descent into the abandoned, the derelict, the vacant and the forgotten. Through her utilisation of forlorn industrial structures, stained and crumbling walls, acts of graffiti, redundant signage, and portals giving access to meandering subterranean systems, Jenny Davis evokes a unique vision at once spare and lavish, material and ghostly. It is a vision that elevates the significance of random marks, stress fractures and other imperfections, while enfolding the viewer in an atmosphere of chromatically gentle and strangely opulent decay. The abstractions that haunt these works are investigations of the many traces that run like hieroglyphs and riddles across the surface of neglected structures.

Davis’s subterranean life began in childhood. Drawn to ‘small spaces’ where she wouldn’t be disturbed, she would play in drainpipes, on vacant industrial sites and in newly constructed buildings, often working discarded materials into makeshift furniture and decorative objects. After an arts residency in Barcelona in 2005 and a visit to France in 2006, Davis steered her arts practice toward spaces reminiscent of those early childhood memories. In researching and documenting understructures, abandoned buildings and marks left behind in the built environment, she found ‘beauty in decay, random marks, aerial perspectives, graffiti and weathered surfaces’. Ever attuned to the narrative and oneiric possibilities of timeworn surfaces, Davis’s latest exhibition creates an altogether seductive immateriality from abrasive mediums such as cement, iron and rust.

Davis’s practice spans twenty-five years and encompasses painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, photography, book arts, textiles, installation‚ video‚ sound and virtual worlds.  Her artwork has been exhibited in Australia, Germany, France, Spain, the UK and the US and is represented in numerous private and public collections. She has received awards and residencies both nationally and internationally, and her digital artworks have been projected onto buildings in Times Square, New York and in 2017 at The Venice Biennale 57. “La Biennale di Venezia” in Italy. Davis currently works from her studio in the Yarra Valley region of Victoria, Australia. By DR. Ewen Jarvis 2018

Wallmatter 5, Acrylic, shellac, pigment, sealer on canvas, 122 x 92 cm

For more information please contact

Dr Ewen Jarvis

Curator

Yering Station Art Gallery

38 Melba Highway

Yarra Glen Vic 3775

P + 61 3 9730 0100

M + 0400 894 646

artgallery@yering.com

www.yering.com

Thank you Bluethumb!

Saturday, September 6th, 2014

I’m a bit late with this…

Thank you BLUETHUMB ! for listing me as one of your top 20 artists to watch in 2014

PCS 8

Rustic Catalan Farmhouse & Frottage.

Friday, June 20th, 2014

I find Frottage rubbings are fun to do.  I did the rubbings, when I was an artist in residency in Spain. The rustic farmhouse was over 200 years old and once a winery. It had amazing textures throughout and the studio’s. were very generous in size.

Textural Surface Paintings. Barcelona Spain.

Monday, October 29th, 2012

Textural Surface Paintings I did in Spain.
In 2005 I was artist in residence at the Can Serrat International Art Center in Barcelona, Spain. During this time I completed several series of works; which developed as a result of solitary expeditions into the surrounding areas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Textural oil paintings on linen, linked to ancient Catalan architecture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My little paintings are rubbings from actual surfaces around the Barcelona, Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ancient markings weathered , subtle & chalky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I added colour to my work with pure powder pigments and oils, hand mixed in my studio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See more of my artwork at Outlook8studio on Etsy

 

Hidden Spaces Exposed.

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Thank you very much Kimberley Seedy and Lawrence Pinder, for the great article and photographs you created for the Leader newspaper about my latest exhibition at Burrinja 351 Glenfern Rd, Upwey Victoria

11 Feb 11 @ 06:01am by Kimberley Seedy

Jenny Davis shows some of the paintings and photographs at her Burrinja Cafe exhibition.s LAWRENCE PINDER N33FP405

A COLLECTION of paintings and photographs featuring some overseas locations are on display in a new exhibition in Upwey. Abstraction and Beyond, featuring the work of artist Jenny Davis, is on at the Burrinja Cafe until March 1.

It consists of seven framed abstract oil paintings on paper, created in Barcelona in 2005, together with mounted night photographs shot in underground locations in Paris in 2010.

Davis describes her photographs as a “non-cliched” look at Paris.

Instead of focusing on the famous monuments, she zoomed in on what was beneath the surface, photographing hidden places, including a storage area under an apartment.

Davis said she loved the spaces underground.

“There’s a life underneath the earth, and people don’t know about it, but it’s very busy and living,” she said.

“I have taken photos of the Eiffel Tower but I go under it, and look at closer fragments.”

Burrinja Cafe is at 351 Glenfern Rd, Upwey.

Abstraction & Beyond (update)

Saturday, February 5th, 2011

Exhibition update:

“Abstraction & Beyond”

Feb.2-1 March

Burrinja Cultural Center

351 Glenfern Road (cnr Matson Drv),

Upwey, VIC, 3158 .

Open Daily 9am-5pm.

If you are heading over to the Dandenongs over the next month, checkout my exhibition “Abstraction & Beyond’ at the Burrinja Cultural Center in Upwey, Victoria.

I just finished hanging the exhibition on Tuesday with the help of Amy Jo Jory, who runs the gallery at Burrinja. A cross-cultural mix of oil paintings I created at an arts residency in Barcelona, Spain, together with mounted night photographs I shot in Paris last winter.

I’m very pleased with the way it looks. My Spain paintings really connect to the space. At Burrinja they have taken on a very Australian feel yet, they are also Spanish. I can see both cultures in the paintings.

I’m relieved it’s finally up and running and all the hard work has been done. Now I like to sit back, let go of the work and relax. Although I love having exhibitions, once they are over, I am always glad to move on and begin new ideas and projects.

Burrinja Café & Bar
Open every day

Bookings: 9754 5707

Burrinja Café provides great food and coffee in a fantastic intimate atmosphere that continues the indigenous theme of Burrinja Gallery. It is an 80 seat fully licensed café that will seduce you the moment you walk in. Escape the hustle into warm ochres, great art and comfy lounges. Enjoy lunch, group get-togethers, music events, or just relax. Burrinja cafe is the ideal place to eat while visiting Burrinja to enjoy the great art or day-tripping in the Dandenong Ranges.

Functions
Burrinja  & Café Bar caters for all types of functions.
Call for details on our wide range of tailored menu options
Music – see Events for the line up of music, spoken word and more at Burrinja Café
Fabulous cakes, coffees, chai and more – all fresh!·
Menu selections are always being updated, and we can cater to your individual needs

More Café Gig & Events Info at the Burrinja Cafe website

My Found-object Sculpture

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

DIARY ENTRY 2005“Surfaces tell the stories of History’s children. I travelled the surface of the battles. Napoleon and Hitler’s slaughter. The senseless bloodshed of scores of the Holy wars. As I entered the borders it invaded my skin, then, seeping into my soul, I saw where it happened over and over again. It clings to me and will stay.

In England I saw a ghost in nave at Canterbury Cathedral and visited the wonderful sea side village of Rye. Nearby the weird, bizarre but wonderful Dungeness. And the fantastic museum in Maidstone where I was the only one, creeping through the old corridors. I loved its ancientness.

In Spain, I felt the genius of Dali, Gaudi , Miro, Picasso and Antoni Tapies.The magic of Don Quixote, Flamenco, the dance and Catalan language.

I had fun with Tarrentino’s, Pulp Fiction in France and the beautiful city of Paris with its beautiful goldness, but no toilets. I fell in love with Venice , Florence and the Renaissance. The architecture cathedrals and more.”