Our own deputy head of department Jeremy came to the studio practice session on 24th October and delivered a fascinating insight into his own professional practice.
Jeremy began by describing his own passage through university, Fine Art Fellowship, residency and PhD and his exploration of sculpture in work that “defines its own limits.” Beginning with chipboard and progressing to more expensive materials via, breeze blocks to casting in concrete, Jeremy’s work has a performative aspect in the way it is stacked, wedged and balanced until the sculptures reach their own fulcrum and move as he describes “from safe to unsafe”. His work by third year of uni, whilst still experimental and playing with heightened tension, was by his own admission, more refined and more finished.
Jeremy described working regularly for the two years following graduation, often in group shows, to fund the purchase of his materials which shifted this time to steel. Whereupon he undertook a fast-paced twelve-month MA at the University of Leeds, now Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Recognising the boundary “when the balanced items fell” as the thing that interested him the most, Jeremy introduced other sources of power to act as the catalyst to make movement. He acquired the necessary parts by scavenging and appropriation, buying parts only when there was a specific need.
Jeremy has a very specialised vocabulary that he uses to describe his work and practice; words and phrases such as “under engineered” and “formally simple” and descriptions of his work as “benign inert items brought into different scenarios, made volatile” with “themes of subverting an intervention into something more sinister.” I am simultaneously depressed and inspired. Jeremy reiterated the value of repetition and experimentation and finished with the message of encouragement: “make the work..... keep on going” and with his understated yet infectious enthusiasm it is hard not to feel that can be the only way forward for third year.
