Thursday March 26th
David P

Lucy Sarneel

Greeted with a very warm welcome, we filled Lucys modest little studio to capacity, munching on biscuits as she told us about her feelings and philosophy on Jewellery. She has decided to fully devote her time to her work now. Small little prototypes and part complete pieces or arranged around the room alongside inspirational objects, a big library and a very compact tool set up. The isolation is more than a little melancholy. I liked the fact that she was working on a kind of visual imbalance, on things that clearly look wrong, but in terms of physics, feel right. I liked also the fact that the ideas were so deeply felt or so abstract that the describing of the work of concepts was difficult. Her response to my question about the piece in Schmuck was layered and complex, an unusual junction for seemingly unrelated lines of enquiry. This is perhaps a really great way to look at the complexity of the symbolic order or indeed the body’s capacity to contain a multiplicity of memories and association ? This suggests to me that there is a truly creative instinct at work.

Gitte Nygaard

Working on a range of scales from large and sculptural to small and intimate, Gittes work is sharply attuned to the urgencies for critical engagement in the everyday. This means a degree of conceptual rigor that challenges the motives that drive a purely aesthetic art form and the sites which it privileges. In an ironic move, the typically utilitarian structure of the playground is made unworkable in order to become an object for contemplation. Both children and adults become tangled in a postmodern folly of sorts. I like that seems a little severe. Serious issues demand that we stop taking things for granted. When she spoke about projects in South Africa and Brazil I was reminded of the lectures by Victor Papenek I attended in 1991 in which he talked entirely about his students projects, all of which based in communities, often neglected or marginal. In Design for the Real World:Human Ecology and Social Change 1971, Papenek write that "Much recent design has satisfied only evanescent wants and desires, while the genuine needs of man have often been neglected by the designer." Gitte also spoke about her needing to be free, not tied up or tied down to the things that can force us into compromises. This kind of fluid and critical voice is precisely the kind of ‘in the field’ pragmatism that our governments need to wake up to and pay attention to.!

Gesine Hackenberg

I had seen work by this artist some time ago so it was nice to visit today. Gesine spoke of her need for some kind of story in connection to making work, in the case of the plate pieces, her grandmothers extensive collecting. She spoke about the historical relevance of Dutch still life history, forming some interesting connections for us with her glass broaches and spatial perspective. She sees all objects as having some kind of relationship to the body. Her jewellery and object pieces all seem to have developed out of the domestic setting. Im looking forward to seeing some Dutch still life tomorrow.