Jodie Carey
Jodie Carey’s sculptures, installations, photographs, and mixed media works explore themes of time, memory, and materiality. In much of her practice the simplicity of the work belies a long, grueling process of creation. For her monumental work Untitled (Slabs) (2012), each of the slabs (mostly three metres in height) were hand-cast by the artist and meticulously coloured using pencil crayon, a medium chosen for its naivety and fragility. The backs of the slabs are purposely exposed to reveal hand-made hessian sand bags weighting the sculptures down. The immersive installation is a monument to its own fragility and vulnerability, subverting the ritualistic traditions of commemoration that mark contemporary western attitudes to mortality. Similarly, Carey’s polymorphous wall drawings from 2015 are executed using colouring pencils–here, a medium selected for its naivety and delicacy. The pastel colours and idiosyncratic nature of colouring induce childhood nostalgia, whilst the act of wall drawing itself refers to the most ancient practice of recording human history and memory. Taking the character of memory itself, these are erasable, fluid artworks, evolving and adapting to each situation in which they reappear.
Carey has had institutional solo exhibitions at Hå gamle prestegård in Norway, New Art Gallery Walsall, and Pump …
Jodie Carey’s sculptures, installations, photographs, and mixed media works explore themes of time, memory, and materiality. In much of her practice the simplicity of the work belies a long, grueling process of creation. For her monumental work Untitled (Slabs) (2012), each of the slabs (mostly three metres in height) were hand-cast by the artist and meticulously coloured using pencil crayon, a medium chosen for its naivety and fragility. The backs of the slabs are purposely exposed to reveal hand-made hessian sand bags weighting the sculptures down. The immersive installation is a monument to its own fragility and vulnerability, subverting the ritualistic traditions of commemoration that mark contemporary western attitudes to mortality. Similarly, Carey’s polymorphous wall drawings from 2015 are executed using colouring pencils–here, a medium selected for its naivety and delicacy. The pastel colours and idiosyncratic nature of colouring induce childhood nostalgia, whilst the act of wall drawing itself refers to the most ancient practice of recording human history and memory. Taking the character of memory itself, these are erasable, fluid artworks, evolving and adapting to each situation in which they reappear.
Carey has had institutional solo exhibitions at Hå gamle prestegård in Norway, New Art Gallery Walsall, and Pump House Gallery in London. Her work has been included in group exhibitions in London at The Freud Museum and The Wellcome Collection.
Courtesy of Edel Assanti
Saatchi Collection, London, UK
David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK
Edel Assanti, London, UK
Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Berlin, Germany
