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.  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.

  

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?