DÉCOR
The Alchemist C H R I SSY-JA N E O’R I ORDAN A RT IST ‘MATERIALITY HAS ALWAYS been a fascination of mine. I’m drawn further into thought and experimentation when I challenge and question my materials,’ says Chrissy-Jane O’Riordan. She recently graduated in painting from UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Art but decided to abandon traditional paint in favour of an alchemical approach to mark making. Fire, water, earth and air are, for her, ‘the autonomous painters of my artworks, lending their delicate yet powerful hand in steering the work along an organic and unpredictable journey’. Such an approach demands that O’Riordan relinquishes control and instead relies on chance. She regards herself as a facilitator, participant and witness to the natural processes – oxidization, evaporation, burning and degradation – she employs. These artistic takes on alchemy manipulate her materials, among which are rusted safety pins and other metals, decaying leaves and tar-baked flowers, salt water and sea salts, forming biologically engineered pigments and inks, the play of which results in surfaces that are painterly and utterly compelling. O’Riordan’s use of techniques like dripping, smoking, spilling and seeping results in mark making akin to that of abstract expressionists Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. ‘Through abstraction I can most deeply be observant of, and an intuitive participant in, the alchemical processes that I catalyse,’ she says. Despite many of O’Riordan’s materials being at the tail end of their life-cycles, she regards her works as celebrations of life, the fleeting and impermanent, and as reminders of our threatened environment. ‘When I consider that the present moment is fugitive and short-lived, I witness an immense peace and love for the smallest of things, as well as for the most distant parts of myself.’
PHOTOGRAPHY MATT SLATER
Instagram @chrissyjaneart
ISSUE 47
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