About the artists No 6. Jill Wales

Jill Wales - Fine Artist BA (Hons)

The heart of my work focuses on empty, uninhabited buildings awaiting demolition or renovation. These buildings are unremarkable, commonplace, unnoticed, which interests me. They are so commonplace they invite both recognition and dismissal. It is interesting to see these places out of their normal context, by distorting the image slightly it forces the viewer to see something that looks familiar become unfamiliar, and strange. There is a feeling of transience in these works of places once being inhabited and moving on, of renovation and demolition of becoming history itself. Video footage and photographs taken from these places are a constant source of reference for my work.

Video Projection  onto concrete 6ftx3ft

Video Projection  onto concrete 6ftx3ft

My projection provides visual distortion and establishes a new dimension of spacial awareness to my work. It has the mesmerizing effect of the cinema screen as the image is constructed and re-materialized in front of your eyes changing the whole documentation of it. Dimensions of rooms, heights, depths, widths are all distorted, challenging our perception and perspective of a place. A familiar image of window, a door, becomes un-familiar making the image appear strange.

I graduated in 2010 from the University of Northampton with a first class honors degree in fine art. My art revolves around the use of different printing techniques, print allows me to explore and manipulate the photographic image onto different surfaces. My Interest lies less in the purity of using one particular medium but more in the suitability of the medium to emphasize the subject. Each technique has its own particular quality.

Etching on paper 29cmX42cm

A photo montage of the screen-printed image exposes both the interior and exterior of a building at the same time exploring the complex relationship we experience with architecture our thoughts and perceptions of that space.

Degree show (2010) Walls/plasters 6ftx4ft on breeze blocks.

These pieces attempt to convey the structural fabric of a building. The large plaster fragments represent elements of walls and floors.  Photographic collages are screenprinted onto plaster showing the destruction or renovation during the lifecycle of a buildings history.

Collograph 15cm x15cm Accademia 250gm

 Collograph 15cm x15cm Accademia 250gm

Simplified balance in print using structural, urban, architectural associations.

Series of 10 prints.

‘Cranes’ 10ft x 1ft digital prints

‘Cranes’ 10ft x 1ft digital prints.

Cranes –these are associated with the construction of new buildings,  These prints are produced to the width of a breeze block.

Artist influences :

Gordon Matta Clark, film, video, photo-collage, drawing, sculpture: his views on art and architecture and his rejection of using art as a commodity.. Matta creates sculpture in the form of large scale interventions into existing architecture.

Jane and Louise Wilson, split screen film installations, film and photography: use the psychological effect that architecture has on the human psyche.

Edward Hopper, painter portrays a certain mood of mystery, estrangement and isolation. His works are contemplative, brooding, introspective and personal.

Gregor Schneider, installation and photography: there is a deliberate confrontation between the viewer and artist’s own psyche. He constantly shifts our perceptions from one space to another by subverting interiors where he deliberately make the viewer uncomfortable. Our notion of proportion and scale is challenged. The viewer interacts to the work emotionally and psychologically.

 Rachel Whiteread, instalations, sculpture; transforms ordinary lived in space into a solid sculpture, renders voids solid, the physical space turned inside out, exposing the complexity of the meaning of ‘home’.