Archive for the ‘France’ Category

Letting Go of Precious Things…

Thursday, January 11th, 2024

 

The 2 vintage boxes above grabbed me today and got me thinking…. I found them on one of my trips to France in a little old messy antique/secondhand corner shop in Asnieres sur Seine. I kept them as an item I thought I would eventually sell in my vintage shop Ateliernostagi

Now, I find them too precious to let go of. Instead I’ve decided to use them in a future art project.

Look at those marks….

 

Life is too short to hold onto precious things and pack them away into boxes and cupboards. Waiting for the perfect time to use them or, pass onto family and friends, who really aren’t as interested in them as you are.

Enjoy and use them while your still here!

 

To me, they look like some sort of storage box that may have held wooden or metal letter stamps. Maybe a hold for jewelers burs, or counters…

What do you think they might have been used for?

Hot Studio. Paper Collage Making.

Monday, December 30th, 2019

Too hot to go to the studio today (43 C – 110 F) so I’m working in the house studio. Messing up the the large table, workbench, I just painted for Xmas dinner. It will now become stained and marked until, I paint it for the next event, or next lot of visitors.

Making collage with vintage and rust papers.

The process of tearing and pasting helps me to slow down and be in the moment. Something I need right now after the rush of appointments and Christmas.

I’m using lots of old paper and pages from antique French magazines disintegrated from age and torn from the long trip back in my luggage, from Paris.

So, I have been using them in my mixed media and collage projects.

On one trip to France I bought home a heap of middle eastern cake papers. I think they were $1 a pack. So I got a mix of colours. They are great for adding pattern and texture.

The inside of window envelopes have great patterns for collage. I often use envelopes to make little books and peepholes in the book pages.

Collages finished today.

Collage 1. Delivery

Collage 2. The Carriers

Collage 3. Mardlarking. Thames.

Collage 4. Salvage

Time & Nature

Sunday, February 3rd, 2019

Exploring objects and textiles is keeping me away from painting in the studio at the moment, but that’s ok, because I’m not just a painter…..

Today, I have been working with time and nature but, now it’s too hot to do anything much, as the temp in the valley has reached 39 Celsius and getting hotter.

I get torn between contemporary and lush, extravagant. Old bones, textiles, rusted wires, watch faces, bits of stick with moss , vintage cosmetic bottles and handmade French influenced, embellishments are on my bench.

Memories and feelings keep flooding back from my times spent in France. Especially touched by Versailles palace and other places in Europe and England. Old history feeds my creativity.

Old rusted wire and found textiles are twisted and sewn with gold threads and remind me of couture and Versailles decadent history.

Formed into fragments that will probably be part of something else.

This one looks like a weird kind of bird.

I’ve also had the de-clutter bug lately so its feels liberating to use up stuff Ive been hoarding for ever.

Art & Recycling. Textiles & Mixed media.

Friday, January 18th, 2019

Art and recycling goes hand-in-hand in the textile and mixed- media side of my arts practice.

My artworks are often created from old, discarded clothing, vintage and antique textiles, papers and found objects. I enjoy making use of stuff that has had a life already; a life that is often purely functional and as far removed from ‘art’ as you can imagine.

I’ve been recycling all my life to make art. As a child, I pulled apart, old clothing and nylon stockings “I used to collect fabric waste from mum’s sewing and knitting basket, making wall hangings out of that.” Nowadays, I cut up my own clothing and others, antique quilts, vintage linens, fancywork and men’s suits.

The process of searching and collecting materials, is also, a very important part of my art’s making. It may take weeks, months, even years, to find a piece that talks to me. Most of the time though, a fragment of fabric, clothing or object, will trigger off the idea. I collect and document many of the pieces I find, by labeling or remembering, its history of when & where it was found. This gives me another layer to work with.

The search for materials has taken me to many weird and wonderful places over the years.

The sometimes, dodgy, back streets of cities, in Barcelona, Italy and France. Markets and charity shops in Australia, France and England. Underground spaces, abandoned buildings, coast lines and vacant beaches. Friends, family and strangers, have also, donated materials to use in my work.

By transforming old, recycled and reused materials, it enriches the stories I like to tell in my contemporary art and gives a new life, to materials destined to be wasted and thrown away.

Thoughts in the studio today. Stacks, towers and painting.

Saturday, December 1st, 2018

A bit of colour in the studio today. How many colours and layers can I stack up on top of one another?

 

 

 

They remind me of Claude Courtecuisse’s   “Hacking Objects” sculptures I saw in Paris at the Georges Pompidou Museum in 2007.

He erected towers and stacks of common objects.

 

Image photographed from original 2007 catalogue. Copyright Georges Centre Pompidou Original photos Copyright Claude Courtecuisse. 2007

 

 

Balance, colour, repetition, scale and transparency is what I took away from that exhibition.

 

  Copyright Jenny Davis

 

As a child, I too, would build little towers of objects in my bedroom.

Still today I play and stack with my vast collection of vintage objects.

The towers have been getting higher and higher over time and eventually, I aim to make huge, tall one’s, up to the roof or even higher.

 

 

Now back to the painting…I’m not sure if I’ve resolved it yet, as something about it is still annoying me. Maybe that’s a good thing?… as sometimes things that are a bit odd are more successful.

I think I will sit with it a bit longer.

 

View of Urban Paris.

Friday, April 6th, 2018

One thing leads to another, everything is connected…

split second images flash by –  embed

opening cracks

rough

rust

decay

rubble

dirt

paint

crumble

torn

scratchy

weathered

worn

unseen

forgotten

abandoned beauty…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Château of Versailles and the beginning’s of something.

Saturday, November 12th, 2016

Château of Versailles and the beginnings of something.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-18sjenny-davis_versailles-idea-sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-1s

Walking through the hundreds of rooms at Château of Versailles, I couldn’t help but notice, the old, stuffy smell and the sound of squeaky, footsteps upon the ancient floors. So, I made a sound video and took close up shots of the wallpapers and other surfaces.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-17sjenny-davis_versailles-project-22sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-9s

I mainly had a fascination with the “over the top” décor, decorative surfaces and patterns.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-12sjenny-davis_versailles-project-2sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-13s

Below the surfaces of this show of power and extravagance, was a history of passion, debauchery, sex, treachery, brutality, corruption, torture and death. I imagined the exotic and beautiful people, the power of the Kings, the abuse of women, Marie Antoinette and the peasants who starved in villages.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-11sjenny-davis_versailles-project-1sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-10s

I also was taken back to my childhood, when, I enjoyed being in my own little world creating, away from the real world. My mum used to make gorgeous clothes with beautiful fabrics and trimmings and I was given the leftover’s. I taught myself to make collage’s, wall hangings, to decorate my room from a very young age.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-15sjenny-davis_versailles-project-5sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-14s

When I was older, I decorated my bedroom with scarves, scraps of fabric and tacked up old bedspreads, made from cotton and woven fringes. The bedspreads became a wallpaper backdrop for my bed that I made into a couch.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-4sjenny-davis_versailles-project-4sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-5s2

I made heaps of cushions and would sit for hours reading, Go Set and TV Week, magazines. The pop star posters were stuck onto the other 3 walls and ceiling.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-6s2jenny-davis_versailles-project-21sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-7s

Since returning from France, I haven’t forgotten the over the top extravagance of Château of Versailles and have been playing around with a few ideas and may look into having an arts residency, nearby in the future.

jenny-davis_versailles-2016-3sjenny-davis_versailles-2016-8jenny-davis_versailles-2016-26s