TIMES III: Terrain

AUGUST 2021

III

ISSUE No.

terrain

Anní Mara __ Paul Michael Dolan ____ Vic Wright ___

Julie F. Hill __ Emily Stapleton Jefferis ___ Silvia De Giorgi

Broad in it’s context, terrain, by definition means ground, but also connotes a field of interest or study.

Geography, cartography, history, geology, pedology, herbology, archaeology... the list of specific studies related to or focused on the ground on which we tread is extensive.

We can also consider concepts rooted in humanity and physical terra: habitation, occupation, territory, displacement, and migration - to name just a few.

From exploration, exploitation, war, and famine to investigation, achievements, and sustainability, land is a powerful central figure in the history and progression of mankind.

For centuries, we have used the earth itself as a tool of creation and sustenance. We have found raw materials like pigment and clay useful in the development of artforms such as painting and ceramics. Earthworks, cave art, chalk figures, and contemporary land art utilise geographical areas to communicate.

In this issue of TIMES, six artists share works that investigate terrain in one form or another, and invite us to engage and acknowledge our common ground.

Cover Image: Chasm, © Julie F. Hill

Anní Mara Paul Michael Dolan Vic Wright Julie F. Hill Emily Stapleton Jefferis Silvia De Giorgi

87 Gallery supports artists to explore, make and show new work.

We are passionate advocates of creative expression and visual culture, and we open our doors for everyone to experience and enjoy this. Located at 87 Princes Avenue, Hull, UK, we welcome you along to see our latest show, chat with our team, browse and buy original art, and to check out the limited edition ranges and exclusive items for sale in our gallery shop.

@weareat87

www.87gallery.co.uk

ANNI MARA

Close to the Land

“Close to the Land is a collection of landscape photographs and personal short essays of my (re)visits home to Iceland during the last couple of years. The work invites the viewer to discover the widely popularised subject from a domestic perspective.

I never wanted to create any work that had anything to do with Iceland, because it felt like everything had already been said and shown. At one point, it was in everybody’s faces - in advertisements, movies, on their social media feed. Everybody told stories about its wild landscape and how they needed to pay £20 for a packet of cheese.

Everybody got it- it’s beautiful and expensive.”

THIRD TEXT paragraph

“I open the news and realise that while I have been sitting on my sofa, reading about O’Hara writing about things that are orange, the land that I am on has finally erupted after months of constant earthquakes that had been waking me up in the middle of the night.

Everything feels so fragile yet so powerful at the same time. And maybe that’s the point. The strength that one should look up to, should come from a vulnerable place.”

PAUL MICHAEL DOLAN Active Components Colocation

“In Active Components (2020) I etched satellite images of Grasberg- an Indonesian copper mine on to printed copper boards (PCBs). The satellite imagery was converted to monochrome, printed on transparent digital contact film and then applied to the board using photoresist film in a darkroom. I used soda crystals to develop the photoresist and Ferric Chloride to etch the boards. Circuit boards are ubiquitous elements of contemporary digital life, and they present a wired, systematic, logical aesthetic. I wanted to make connections between the layout of electronics components and the shapes of the earth from which these materials were extracted from.”

“I research the geographical locations that are critical to maintaining our digital lives, such as datacentres, render farms and rare-earth mines. In Colocation (2021), a forthcoming photobook, I visited a datacentre and photographed the spaces and power infrastructure, to visualise the geographic locations that collectively constitute the internet. Battery Backup Room is one of several rooms in the datacentre that are waiting to kick in if there is a powercut to the main supply. Thick insulation mats line the floor in case of electric shock, which fills the room with the smell of rubber. Despite the hundreds of batteries stacked on shelves, they only provide enough energy to keep the datacentre running whilst the main supply is rebooted - around 30 seconds. These rooms are a physical reminder of the sheer amount of energy required to maintain the datacentre operations 24 hours a day.”

Left: Active Component Series - Grasberg I (2020) Battery Backup Room (2021), digital photograph Hot Aisle 1 (2021), colour negative

VIC WRIGHT Gather Shape Shaped Kin Shaped Surface

Vic Wright is a sculptor from North West England. She studied Fine Art at the University of Humberside and now works from her studio in Manchester.

“Typically my work takes the form of casts. Using a base of sustainable casting cement, different materials such as metal powders and pigments are added. When drying, this results in different textures, colours and surfaces.

I have an explorative approach to my work. I want to capture the differences between contrasting elements, to create a visual language between materials. My work evokes the natural world, only amplified, distorted and moulded to give new context. I’m influenced in how nature displays beauty in difference. My interest in using industrial materials creates delicate tactile results, which is a common thread throughout my work.”

Gather Shape (2020) pigment & white casting cement 30 x 25 cm

Above: Shaped Surface (2020) crystal, lichen, pigment, 24k gold leaf, ink, and white casting cement 18 x 16 cm, Left: Shaped Kin (2021) Pigment, iron & white casting cement 28 x 20cm

JULIE F. HILL Chasm

“I make approximations to the geological and notions of landscape in my works. The Earth’s deep time, evidenced in its geology offers our closest approximation to the vast expanses of the cosmos and its scales and orders beyond the human.

With this in mind, I look to create forms that blend the astronomical and the geological. Chasms is a series of works that cross photography and sculpture, made by digitally processing RAW images from the Hubble Space Telescope using scientific software.

Various algorithmic functions are applied to visualise an image from the data. The ‘image’ is then sent through a series of digital and physical transformations as an attempt to explore the chasm-like depths of photographic space and interstellar space.”

archival pigment prints, 28 x 33cm

EMILY STAPLETON JEFFERIS On the sand clay falls Sheets beneath my fingertips Roots

“This work was made in response to the terrain of Hogchester Arts where I completed a residency in 2019.

As it was winter the structures of the trees and plants felt very present and I was interested in the overlap between these botanical structures and the human body.

Very near the Dorset coast, I became interested in the geology of the area, focusing on the fossils found at the beach, and thinking about the process of fossilisation in relation to ceramics. Using the clay gathered from Hogchester’s terrain was interesting to me as a way to ground the works to their site of inspiration.

On the sand the clay falls is made from Stoneware. This clay, which I dug from the ground and glazed, is local to Hogchester.”

Reflected through the tidal pools of Charmouth and suspended like silica shimmering on a microscope slide of foraged clay, these works are part of the shifting landscape of Hogchester.

They channel my ongoing fascination with the structures hidden within the natural world, and explore how scale can bind unfamiliar forms to the human body.

Sheets beneath my fingertips, Hogchester clay, soil, pigment and concrete.

Roots, ink, watercolour and mud on paper

SILVIA DE GIORGI Traces

“Traces is an ongoing project which explores archaeological documentation techniques involved in the conservation of prehistoric rock carvings. Rock carvings are an important part of human history but they are rapidly being destroyed by changing environmental conditions.

By adopting archaeological rubbing methods I initiated a journey across the mountains and valleys of my home region in the Italian alps, to identify and register rock formations marked by its prehistoric inhabitants. The frottages created in this series not only document the geological features of the rock and the faint prehistoric carvings on its surface, but also work as a ‘recorded dialogue’ between the rock face and myself.

They contain the memories and experiences of the hours and days spent working on site, within the land and in close contact to its history. The frottages are often accompanied in exhibitions by hand-printed photographs referencing the visited locations as well as natural objects collected on site.”

Right: Traces IV, rubbing of a rock face with prehistoric rock carvings carbon paper on drawing paper (2019) detail from installation view: ‘A Thousand Configurations’, Lewisham Art House, London

Liquid Landscapes / Landscape Pieces, silver gelatin prints on expired photographic paper (2018-)

Retracing the Landscape, installation view with natural objects, plan chest drawer with silver gelatin prints (2019)

Progress shots, (top) detail of a prehistoric rock art panel, South Tyrol, Italy (bottom left) frottage/rubbing of the rock art panel on site (bottom right) carbon paper on drawing paper (2019)

87 Princes Avenue Hull, HU5 3QP @weareat87 hello@87gallery.co.uk www.87gallery.co.uk