What better way to kick off a brand new year
of exhibitions than with an artist full of potential and energy, and in the
middle of a flurry of prolific creation and presentation. Lucy has recently had
her work shown in Sydney, Adelaide and Berlin, and this year has exhibitions
booked at the Rooftop Gallery, Anna Pappas Gallery and two collaborative
exhibitions at Craft Victoria. If I was a gallery director I’d say she was just
about the perfect investment.
So, in my capacity as an actual gallery
director (ha!) I fired some questions at her while she busily kept cutting up
old books with her medical scalpels.
SR: We were just talking recently about the materials you use for your
collages and I think it's very intriguing the way you collect them and where
they come from. Could you explain how you go about sourcing your images?
LJ: I initially started using books for
materials when I was in art school, and in an effort to save cash I stuck scrap
paper into old books to use as sketchbooks. I kept finding amazing imagery that
I couldn't bear to waste, so I salvaged them and started to use them in art
works.
Now all of my images come from second
hand/antique/recycled books and magazines, which is often quite a contentious
issue - so many people believe that it is sacrilege to cut up books. My view is
that a lot of these books have already been rejected by their owner, and are
collecting dust on a bookshelf (or worse, in landfill). I guess I try to breathe
new life into these forgotten images and texts. These books come from op shops,
markets, antiquarians, friends, online. Often I have a specific book that I'm
using for one work, and I'll need more than one copy of it in order to get
enough imagery. (Some of those leaf collages require a LOT of leaves!) That's
when I'll venture online. I'm pretty anal about the kind of paper stock I use,
the printing technique, the period in which they were printed etc - a lot of
those reasons are purely material based, however I'm also drawn to books that are
imbued with a strong sense of history.
SR: The other element to your work that is quite significant is
accumulation. Often you have masses of flowers, butterflies or leaves in your
works. What's the driving force behind masses of objects for you?
LJ: Hmm that's a good question. Um. I think
initially it was a subconscious thing, I've always been interested in
collecting. I think what I find interesting about these 'masses' is that
individually, each flower/leaf etc, is quite different, in colour and shape and
so on, but then collectively, these pieces become uniform and start to function
as a single entity. Once you get to a certain point of accumulation, the
objects/images as a whole tend to gather their own force and energy, similarly
to swarms of bees, or crowds at a rock concert, that kind of thing. Which I
reckon is pretty cool. And quite weird really, seeing as making work of this
nature is a really solitary venture.
I wonder what that says about me: woman sits
at home by herself, cutting out hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of leaves to
glue onto paper. I sound like a creepy chick from a horror movie, that sings to
herself and also has the power of telekinesis. Unfortunately I do not have the
power of telekinesis. But all that other stuff, yep.
SR: Well, that leads me to pose another question to you. Your work often has
these hybrid creatures in it, and for this show there's a few people with
plants for heads. Conceptually, I find there's a lot in that. Humans with their
intellect supplanted by brainless, yet thriving flora. Supplanted. Nice.
Anyway, people sometimes see a dark edge to your work, due to the cutting up of
the bodies - splicing body parts. What are your thoughts on that, and what's the
intention with the hybrids from your point of view?
LJ: Well I think you've said it really! There is a bit of darkness in the
work, though I don't necessarily see it as cutting heads off in a beheading
sense. In a way these plants are representing a headspace (quite literally). In
would I rather be a sunflower, I was referencing the song 'Sunflower' by
Tinpan Orange. That particular aspect of the song talks about being solitary
and alone, as a sunflower, as opposed to being a daffodil (which is what the
image actually is of), blooming 'as one'. I thought that was a really beautiful
way to reference the utter confusion of the desire to be altogether and alone
all at the same time. Like we discussed before, so many of these works
reference a mass of beings, yet to put them together, takes days of being
alone. I don't sit at my desk and cut up bodies in a vicious sense - they are
only made of paper Kent, they can't feel it. I think it's more of a rearranging
and interpreting of images. Maybe in a melancholic longing sense.
Awesome. You can see more of Lucy's work at www.lucyjames.com.au
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