FRANCES
YEOLAND
THE WORK
The artworks presented in Body Dissolve, frame the places in which we are not located. The space that is longing, and imagination, and loss. On longing – a line that often appears in my work – describes the abstract and dull sensation of want. Our collective inability to articulate the void that we all hold within. Bodies next to each other, and missing from each other, loved lost, moments spoiled, opportunities missed, bodies turning. My singular body exists within the rigid boundaries of institution, a privilege that is at once earned and punishment. Connectivity finds expression within restriction.
The connectivity series originated as a body of work exploring these structures of organisation and flow. Here, we see connectivity drawings traversed as a territory with holes, pieces missing, cut. The images are constructed in layers from an initial drawing in which a single line connects each form. The process for these works is both expressive and systematic in its approach, asserting an idea often touched on in my work; that of tension between freedom and control. The spontaneously composed line drawings, which appear to be one form, evolve through the layering of paint into segregated sections of color. The patterns that emerge become a system that defies the limits of its original format, expanding to many applications such as a rug. Can a time dedicated to repeating forms – like repeating mantras – and weaving them into an overall vibrational system have the power to change the currents of connectivity in our universe?
BIO
The emotional act of making my work depicts the harmony and tensions between art and design, money and what is colloquially referred to as “free time” - and what our free time consists of. How does art, and furthermore art made in the home, complicate the border between career and recreation? How do we behave in time that lacks direct monetary value, and if artwork has been placed in this presumably limited block of time, what other potential uses of this time is artwork juxtaposed with?
Through a visual practice encompassing painting, drawing, installation and language I look at ways in which creativity (and the individuals that export it), is corrupted in its exchange with capitalism. In particular, how an emphasis on systems (visual, productive and financial) has shaped my approach to art making and communication. My work over the last 10 years is expressed in response to my full-time work as a “creative professional” and the subsequent exposure to systems that manage and control individuals within a complex corporate hierarchy.
WRITING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: NIA NOTTAGE