Steele,
Joanna
I am concerned with elevating the everyday object; highlighting the potential for the ordinary to echo the epic. Using the sublime landscape as a platform, I highlight the possibility of found material to emulate the expansive environment. My work makes no claim to be transitory, but instead focuses on the importance of memory and imagination.
I source material that has a story of its own, and made for a purposes far removed from the art object, instantly recognisable, and often domestic. The framing of the object is vital to our willingness in imagining the otherworldly landscape, but the work never negates the possibility to be drawn back into reality and the poverty of the material. My practice is honest about the low status of the materiality, as much as it distorts the truth of what lies beyond the frame. Whether the grid of a map, the borders of a photograph or the location of instillation; my interpretation of the environment works within these constrains.
My use of transparency and light creates the appearance of a sculpture that is formless, where the pictorial and sculptural collide. My practice blurs the boundaries between real spaces, through the suggestion of scale and the audience’s placement. Often, the viewer is directed to appropriate their physical position in order to appreciate the full effect of the false landscape.
I rethink urban sprawl, both in its original purpose and material properties, together they create the possibility to imagine, not only when faced with the art object, but also the way we see the world when we leave the exhibition space. By the suggestion of accidental pleasure, within a new structured environment, I create a distorted utopia that lends itself to failure as well as aspiration.
Contact details
Miss
Joanna
Steele
20 William Dunbar House
Albert Road
LONDON
NW6 5DE
0790 596 2592
joanna.steele@gmail.com
www.joannasteele.blogspot.com
Primary Art Form
Visual Arts and Designer Makers
Other Artform categories
Environmental Artist
Installation
Photographer
Public Art
Sculptor
