Skye Jamieson and Kendall Manz describe the link between their art practices as a feeling of “abundance within sparseness.” They both create a prolific amount of work during the initial making process before engaging in a brutal process of elimination, stripping each piece back to its bare and minimal form.
In their first collaborative exhibition, Jamieson and Manz combine their respective painting and ceramic works in a visual conversation, each piece reflecting and riffing off the next. “We share a sensibility in the way we create space within our works as well as the way they respond to the space they inhabit and create relationships with one another,” Jamieson says.
Water, concrete and nature fundamentally inform their work. Jamieson is drawn to the colour blue and building supplies, using materials like resin and aluminium to create abstract sculptures and paintings, while Manz incorporates the organic, unpredictable progression of natural forms in her delicate white porcelain sculptures.
Jamieson’s paintings in Activity Centres possess numerous sweeps of blue and white, harbouring the energy of gestural movement and offsetting Manz’s languid forms which defy their solid ceramic medium, appearing as pliable as taffy. The architecture of the gallery space is also an essential part of the exhibition.
Elaborating on how the components of painting, ceramics and architecture intertwine, Manz explains: “Some of the work is suspended which allows the room to enter the work as the work enters the room. Essentially, the nature of the work resists dominating its environment.”
Activity Centres
Skye Jamieson and Kendall Manz
M16 Artspace
21 March—7 April
This article was originally published in the March/April 2019 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
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