emma johnson

PLAIGIARISM: EQUIVALENT

Homage to Carl Andre, 2008

recycled newspaper
10cm x 60cm x 200cm

Comment on the Death of Investigative Journalism in Britain. Made from recycled news, stolen idea, and built on shaky foundations.

Stack

2007

Installation

Newspaper
100cm x 30cm x 15cm

‘Stack’ is the first in a series of installations, objects, and prototypes for a larger work dealing with towers / heaps of paper. On a personal level, it is within my nature (a) to hoard / archive objects, and (b) deconstruct / destroy them. As an inherited trait, this interests me a great deal: not only do the objects themselves contain a history, but so does the obsessive way in which they are treated.

Remembering

2006

Folded Book

A Single book in a continuing series of folded bookworks, looking at the changing sculptural physicality of a book when it is read: having pages folded down at the corners, and markers placed within the pages to remind us. Also dealing with issues of deconstruction and transformation, the recycling of materials, and the ambiguity of text – as well as the obsessive repetitive actions used in the making of the work.

Relativity (Brave New World) – detail

Installation

TARDIS international

(Videoart, Installation & Performance), Argyle Street Annexe, Suffolk College, Ipswich

July 2006

This floor-based installation is about issues surrounding human reproduction, inherited traits, and genetic engineering. A dressmaker’s pattern for a human body overlaid on computer generated “skin”. Influenced by the fact that I am the “product” of a dressmaker and a geneticist, and have very ambiguous feelings about motherhood.

This installation was made in collaboration with Ann Johnson.

Home

Installation

Open 2 Art

Salvation Army Charity Shop, Ipswich

May 2005

Made out of recycled clothing, this installation symbolises the assistance provided by The Salvation Army to some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

The Salvation Army has a very strong recycling ethic – very little is wasted, and so after the exhibition closed, the house was dismantled, and all the clothing re-introduced into the recycling system.

Against The Grain

Installation

Fore Front Gallery, Ipswich

November 2003

A floor-based installation made out of large quantities of folded paperback books (200+). Dealing with issues of deconstruction and transformation, the recycling of materials, and the ambiguity of text, as well as the obsessive repetitive actions used in the making of the work.

Between The Lines

Installation

“Segue”, A Festival of Installation Art

St. Mary at the Quay

May 2003

This is a piece about the fragmented nature of memory, time and history – linear communication made illegible. The piece is made from a collection of forgotten letters which have been deconstructed (shredded) and made unreadable, but reconstructed into an artwork which stands as a tangible and symbolic presence of the memories contained within.

Enigma

Installation

Forefront Gallery, Ipswich

December 2002

Working with the idea of coded communication and a visual suggestion of Morse Code. Photographs of all of the cellphone masts in East Anglia were cut into two inch squares, and re-assembled in the wrong order: fragmenting the network, and representing it as a broken sequence around the walls of the gallery.This is a visual manefestation of a method of communication which was designed to be aural, not visual.

Disconnected: lines of communication broken.

Double Exposure

Installation

“Drawn Together”, Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery. The Market Cross, Bury St. Edmunds.

Sept-Oct 2002

Based on architectural imagery taken from the Market Cross Gallery, this piece is made up of two images – one from the inside of the large window at the end of te gallery, and the other from the same window, but from the outside of the building. Whilst the image is placed in the gallery floor as a “reflection” of the window, the external image contradicts that possibility. This contradiction is emphasised by the fragmentation and distortion of the double exposure, the perspective, and the tiled grid format of the image on paper.

Two weeks into the exhibition, the central secton of the installation was removed, and replaced with a negative version of the image, adding a further dimension to the concept of double exposure.

Relativity

Installation

Fore Front Gallery, Ipswich

November 2001

400 buttons: systematically sorted, numbered, labelled, catalogued, sealed in poly-bags and displayed in order of colour, thickness, diameter, number of holes, and material.

Fragments

Installation

Kharkov City Art Gallery, Kharkov, Ukraine.

July 2002

Three large scale, fragmented images of the back of the artist’s head in three different stages of disintegration, from greyscale to pure black & white. As part of the human body, the head is completely out of scale within it’s architectural context, and its positioning on the floor and fragmented nature adds to this ambiguity.

A piece about alienation, contradiction, image and identity – my hair is my identity, yet you cannot see my face. (This is almost the complete opposite of “Surfacing”, in which I am emerging from beneath the floor plane).

Cause & Effect

Installation

The Ancient House Gallery, Ipswich

February 2001

“Cause & Effect” is about the relationship between action and consequence. Every action we take has a direct outcome, and indirect repercussions, whether they be good or bad; within our control, or out of it. Perhaps this piece is about guilt, accountability, and loss of control – how far can it be said that we are to blame if a chain of events initiated by us has wild and unpredictable repercussions?

Paprika

(pumpkin seeds, pins)

Installation

Jászberény, Hungary

August 2000

A site-and-country-specific work on the table of an open fronted restaurant cabin. The surface of the table is covered with paprika, which has been rubbed into the grain of the wood – and pumpkin seeds, which are impaled onto the surface with long dressmakers’ pins.

Surface Tension

Installation

Mamü Galeria, Budapest, Hungary

August 2000

This installation, a large scale, fragmented digital image of my own fingerprint is about the confusion between image and identity, or “Surface Tension“.

“Image” is on the surface, and is shaped and modelled in accordance with things such as aspirations, peer groups, social constraints, and fashion. Our fingerprint, or “identity”, is a paradox in this respect, as it is the only facet of our true identity to appear on the surface.

Precision Indecision

Installation

25 Grimwade Street, Ipswich

December 2000

A veneer of order with chaos simmering just beneath the surface.

Surfacing

Installation

The Red Dot Gallery, Ipswich

February 2000

Although Surfacing is figurative, its physical scale and fragmented nature give it a measure of illegibility, which points to the ambiguity of images and the potential for the imposition of inappropriate meanings. The work invites a range of interpretations from it’s indistinct appearance, as to who or what is “surfacing” and from where, and engagement with the nature of its orientation, prompted by the free-standing placement on the floor.

Inner Space

An Installation for EDGE

September 1998

A Design For Living 1

Firstsite at the Minories, Colchester, England

January 1998

“A Design For Living” is a series of domestic assemblages – transient site-specific floor pieces made from temporary “throwaway” domestic objects. It deals with the obsessive collection, categorisation and juxtaposition of these objects / multiples, as well as the meditative qualities brought about by the overall aesthetic. Despite being assembled from three-dimensional objects, these pieces have a tranquility dictated by their calm, flat, “two-dimentional” effect.