Silent Signals - a-n The Artists Information Company

Venue: The Crypt Gallery
Starts: Sunday, December 12, 2010
Ends: Friday, December 17, 2010
Address: Norway Square, St.Ives Cornwall
Location: South West England

Contemporary Painters Jayne Smith, Diane Rush, Juliette Paull,Una D’Aragona and Ray Sapak share an interest in pushing the boundaries of their artistic practice and have come together to produce this exciting artist-led exhibition which explores contemporary concerns of identity and both physical and psychological boundaries; featuring work by guest artist Naomi Frears the show will be curated by Lisa Wright.

Jayne-Anita Smith

Jayne Smith - Artist statement

Situated between consciousness and dream, the scenes of petrified marginal spaces are colonized by the architectural fabrications of a futuristic world.Â An apocalyptic scene that bears silent witness to our failures and repressed memories, they reference our search and subsequent failure for a new way of living, a utopian ideal, in response to the pressures on contemporary living from the effects of climate change, exploding population and shortage of planet resources.

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Before this immense space the displaced characters are lost and small. They convey a sense of stillness, alienation and of waiting for something. Promised the sublime through a manufactured, false beauty, they search for the 'otherness' in relation to the self. Seeking out an alternate identity they explore a virtual reality that allows them the freedom to explore hidden possibilities, highlighting a relationship to our growing interest in escaping reality through the culture of video games.

The painted surface plays an important role in the final outcome of the work and to how it is read; mixing up the language of paint to highlight the illusion of the image. The freedom and play of paint sits in conflict with the geometric structure of the monumental architecture, expressing the emotional turmoil and awe that is felt by the spectator.

My works focus on the paused moment, the instinctive space where we search for something 'more', as a reaction to the restraints placed upon us as individuals by a culturally commercialised and plastic contemporary world. They set out explore the loss of utopia and failure of modernism, asking the questions: What was it we might have hoped? What was the world we thought we could have?

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