Wexford Arts Centre presented
Juliana Walters, Jane Jermyn, Gerda Teljeur
The exhibition Surface Tension, with works by Gerda Teljeur, Juliana Walters and Jane Jermyn, has been selected for The Touring Experiment and will travel to a number of locations throughout Ireland over the next months. Curated by Wexford Arts Centre, Surface Tension brings together a disparate body of works in ceramic, sculpture, drawing and video that focuses on the artists’ shared interest in the materials of making: in themes of repetition, and where the works in different ways seem to connect into notions of Time and Distance. As such a narrative unfolds within and between the works that is not necessarily part of the artists’ shared intellectual or conceptual enquiry, but has happened through an intelligent act of curatorial juxtapostioning. Unpredictable connections occur and grow out of the tension that builds between works creating a space for other narratives or fictions to form. Like the road journey that this exhibition will take, the works within are collectively opened to multiple interpretations, for the artists who did not know each other before exhibiting together have not pre-forwarded a directive text. And so we can find ourselves within this space tuning into not only the more conscious reflective aspects of our minds but perhaps more deeply into the sensual realms of our beings.
If an interplay between time and distance might be found within a non-linear narrative that flows between the works of Juliana Walters, Gerda Teljeur and Jane Jermyn then it allows for an almost schizophrenic leaping between past and present, between feelings of displacement and connection; the back and forth - so much a part of the repetitive act integral to the making process within each of the three artist’s practice. While clearly the emphasis and concerns of the artists differ greatly, it is one of the successes of this exhibition that such differences do not limit or contrive viewing, but rather enable a further opening up to the other in totally unpredicted ways. There is a sense that something deeper, more subliminal, is in operation here that supports this interconnection. Perhaps it is an unblocking of pathways between states of being - between our conscious, subconscious and unconscious selves – our divided selves – providing a way forth for experiencing simultaneous feelings of completeness and fragmentation, of the real and the imagined, that would appear to mirror our experiences of being in the world and our complex relation to the world around us.
Entering into the spirit of the Touring Experiment Juliana Walters, Gerda Teljeur and Jane Jermyn will take to the road with Wexford Arts Centre’s touring exhibition. At Broadstone Studios there is a desire to add new work – to respond to the gallery space, to reconsider elements of the show. Generously and creatively the three artists who were at the start strangers to each other, have committed their time and artistic energy and as travelling partners they set out on their journey prepared but also open to the endless possibilities that may arise en route.
Cliodhna Shaffrey, excerpts from Surface Tension exhibition catalogue, 2007
Including essays by Mic Moroney, Paul Murnaghan, Moira Vincentelli
http://www.wexfordartscentre.ie/exhib/surface/01.html
The challenges of touring: artists and exhibitions in different contexts
Panel speakers:
– Independent Curator
- Visual Arts Advisor, The Touring Experiment
- Craft Design Writer & Critic, Sunday Times, Irish Arts Review
