JESS MACNEIL / TALK AT SYDNEY COLLEGE OF THE ARTS

Jess MacNeil_The Familiar Strange (Grey Rhombus)_2014_oil on cast acrylic, aluminium, coloured mdf

Jess MacNeil will give a talk on her artistic practice at Sydney College of the Arts this Wednesday the 9th of April, as part of their lunchtime lecture series. With her new show 'Unfound' opening at Artereal, Jess MacNeil is visiting from her home in London. She is a graduate of SCA and a prevalent contemporary artist. 

Some insights into the methodology and conceptual context of these new works as revealed by Jess Macneil: 

"The large paintings are 'drawn' from cumulatively constructed images of 'landscapes' close to me (and to others) as I encounter and interpret them over time. They're drawn from video footage as source. This footage is taken of different aspects of my surroundings, all shared/public spaces filled with the presence of others and, as always, their absence, or the ever intriguing combination of these that living in a crowded city presents.

The photographs carry some of this feeling of dislocation from assumed reality and inability to get full bearings or orientation, emphasised by the way they are presented (including the framing with coloured acrylic, their literal orientation), and for me is carried in quite a sensual, bodily way..... For me this (these, and the painting works too) opens up a rich and perplexing space to explore; the stretched elastic between understanding and confusion and our (my) suspension in it, particularly the ways we then navigate through it as we make our lives."

To learn more about Jess MacNeil's works, click here.