French, Jessie. 2023. To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Paintings in algae-based plastic. Wild Hope: Conversations for a Planetary Commons exhibition, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.
Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Jessie French's paintings To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. View 1, 2023.
Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Jessie French's paintings To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. View 2, 2023.
I visited the Wild Hope exhibition on 22 September 2023. The Wild Hope exhibition seeks to demonstrate through art and exhibition technology and materials that we can adopt sustainable frameworks. Its goal is to act as a catalyst for regenerative change.
The work of three artists in particular stood out for me, from over twenty works.
This post concerns the first of these, Jessie French and her work To sow the wind and reap the whirlwind 2023. This work consists of six abstract paintings in algae based plastic, suspended from the ceiling, with each periodically lowered or raised, seemingly at random by a mechanical support. The algae-based plastics are an intentional alternative to harmful petrochemcical based plastics. French’s use of these algae-based plastics extends to the signage for the entire exhibition, with algae-based labels printed on waste or recycled board and wood.
The six paintings are in a variety of colours. Naturally I was attracted to the most subdued green/blue work, which resembled kelp floating in the deep sea, reinforced by the swaying motion and silent vertical motion of the panel, creating the percept of tidal flows (Hickey-Moody 2013, 85-86). After the visit, while researching artists for Studio 2, I also realised that Jessie French contributes to the Seaweed Appreciation Society International ((SASi) 2023).
French’s method of hanging installation resonates with me, as evident through earlier posts about suspended works (for example, Vera Moller’s Verdana no. 2 and Takahiro Iwasaki’s Reflection Model (Itsukushima). I am exploring vertical hanging formats in my last Studio 2 project, as shown by the following photograph of a test installation.
Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of her suspended works from her Precarious Times test installation, 2023.
The final affect of the installation was to prompt me to consider anew the need to be more environmentally conscious in my practice.
Bibliography:
Hickey-Moody, Anna. 2013. "Chapter 4 Affect as Method: Feelings, Aesthetics ad Affective Pedagogy." In Deleuze and research methodologies edited by Rebecca Coleman and Jessica Ringrose, 79-95. Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, United Kingdom).
(SASi), Seaweed Appreciation Society international. 2023. "Contributors." https://www.seaweedappreciationsociety.com.
Comments