Emma Jordan
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Use above tabs to navigate between the Image Gallery, Summer Show Reflection, and RF/Future Studio Plans.
'2511'. 2024. 200x300cm. Polyethylene on Steel Frame.
'2511' was created for the Summer Show 2024, and has an entire section devoted to it here, where everything from the planning to the opportunities resulting from the show are explored.
'Series: 2525'. 2024. 30x167cm. Graphite on Newsprint
Series 2525 is intended to be viewed as a journey through space, starting at the front doorstep, and ending at the belly of the building. Each composition records and reveals a second of time, where you stood, and where you made a decision to go. Where someone stood before you, and where someone will stand after you. Each rubbing is an experience, one of making and recording, one of existing in space and architecture, and one of viewing and analyzing the overlooked and unnoticed. These rubbings brought light and contrast to sections of gallery flooring that have been tread on and taken for granted for many years, as the focus had always been on what work hangs on the walls. My take away from this series is that the unnoticed has significance.
This work will be a jumping off point for further works around architecture, and will play a role in the foundations of what to look for and reveal in new spaces, especially those with unique or emotionally charged backgrounds and histories.
'2643'. 2024. 60x60cm. Polyethylene on Wood Frame
'2643' is a polyethylene 'stretched canvas' where I experimented with varying densities of polyethylene plastics, exploring how I can push the material to be conjoined with others, and how those layers interact with each other under the stress of differing tensions. I want to develop a work where there is a sense of three-dimensionality much deeper than the dimples, holes, and stretching that comes from the punctures or melting, and '2643' has showed me that with enough patience, endurance, and heat, that I can push the concept I learned from '2511' where multiple layers had accidentally melted together, to a more formal method of combining. I will use this piece as an example for the work I have propsed in the future plans section, creating a large scale conglomerate, where the cross-sections and in-between layers become the focus, rather than the face of the surface.
'2637'. 2024. 300x65cm. Polyethylene in Window
This piece reconsiders a once triggering experimental method of cutting, and extends '2511' by using its remnants and offcuts as a skin to allow for the mutilated layer behind to be concealed and revealed simultaneously in the light of a window. I wanted to portray that beneath the surface, unless illuminated, the full picture may be obscured and/or hidden altogether, and the sometimes invisible, yet heavily impactful consequences of trauma is ever present, whether it is witnessed or not. The scroll-like polyethylene seeps in and cascades onto the floor, or in its alternative composition, blankets everything in its path, covering it with darkness, and burying all signs of what lies beneath it,
Thoughts after deconstruction: Viewing from the other side (through the window from the outside) the trauma is the most present characteristic, pressed on top of the skin, never reaching deeper inside than its protective barrier will let it. Providing a completely reciprocal story, and exposing the double-sided nature of living with trauma. We fight not to let it in, we fight not to let it out. We show it to the world, the world does not want to see it.
STUDIES
This section includes individual studies from recent studio experiments, and the corresponding captions are attached to each image.
The paper-based works are all exploring the results of speed in mark-making from the movement of the body, nearly automatic, these drawings are created in a emotionally charged state where exertion of the muscles is deemed the most productive way to expel energy and return to the mindful and calm headspace.
'Ironing Study' was a preliminary exploration of melting and burning polyethylene in the beginning of term III, and was the piece that had inspired the methods I continued to use throughout the term and now beyond the course.
Automatics. Summer 2024. 22x30inches Graphite, Charcoal on Paper.
'Ironing Study' 55x76cm. Polyethylene
Speed Triptych I, II & III, 2024, 22x30in Conté on Acrylic paper
"Carbon Study". 2023. 50x70cm. Charcoal on Paper.
'Landscape I', 150x180cm, Conté on Paper
Speed and Subconscious, 150x200cm, Conté on Academia Paper
GUIDED DRAWINGS REIMAGINED
These drawings are not originally intended to be seen as drawings, but as exercises in grounding and mindfulness. It starts by creating a fluid shape, and continually and repetitively following the line, 20-30 times. I find this exercise helpful when balancing the emotional and physical responsibilities of my practice, allowing for time to simmer on ideas, and move my body. I wanted to reimagine guided drawings from an exercise to a series of works, by placing them in a different context. As they had served their purpose in the moment, I feel that they can provide insight and upon reflection.
As these forms were drawn digitally, I would print these images onto a thin board (mount board or steel) held slightly away from the wall to differentiate the white background and the wall surface, with no visible framing. I would love to see them at human-sized scale (right) but also experimented with seeing multiple in one space (left). In total I did 25 mindful exercises resulting in these drawings (scrolling gallery). Additionally, I layered some of the drawings I felt were complimentary to each other (bottom) to create new compositions, much like how I have been layering the polyethylene and noting in the psychological theory.
