A new monograph of Jac Scott’s work has been published with the University of Strathclyde, Arts Council England, Collins Gallery and Glasgow City Council. This hard backed, full colour volume includes the latest collection of work by the artist, two specially commissioned essays by curator Beverley Knowles and environmentalist Thomas Lindley and insight into the artist’s research.
Sample pages are shown opposite
Price £15 plus p&p
ISBN 978-0-947649-34-0
Contact studio@jacscott.com to order a copy.
reference book for The Crowood Press. Published June 2003 ISBN 1-86126-578-6 www.crowood.com REPRINTED 2008
The twentieth century saw an unprecedented revolution in the redefinition of sculpture from both a cerebral and material perspective. This polemic discourse continues to create dynamic interfaces that blur the boundaries of traditional practice. ‘Textile Perspectives in Mixed-Media Sculpture’ examines one such interface - that of mixed-media sculpture and three-dimensional textile art.
Introductory chapter contextualises textile perspectives in mixed-media sculpture and discusses elements that concern the sculptor in the twenty first century
Illuminating text on the creative journeys of contemporary artists
Informative technical information on creating sculpture from plastic, rubber, plaster, metal and paper
Advice on health and safety issues
Insightful profiles of over thirty contemporary professional artists specializing in mixed-media sculpture
Useful reference section
Sumptuously illustrated in full colour with over 140 photographs
‘Textile Perspectives in Mixed-Media Sculpture’ can be purchased at any good bookshop or through the publishers at Crowood Press www.crowood.com
A variety of sumptuously illustrated fine art catalogues and postcards are available for purchase. Email the studio through contact page.
Catalogue 2006
Catalogue part funded by Cultural Business Venture Cumbria fund, Rural Regeneration Company.
‘Revealed’ article about artist Lucy Brown for book and exhibition catalogue. Published 2005 by Nottingham Castle Museum.
‘Interventions’ article about ‘Wasted’ residency for A-N magazine Oct. 2000
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Beverley Knowles Curator Excess Essay (fragment) It is our all too human consumerist tendencies that Jac Scott turns her clear-eyed gaze upon. In the way of most art worth its salt, Jac does not impose any crass morality tales onto her observations. Rather, she examines the religion of disposability that we live by in the modern west, and the significance behind the relationships we have built between ourselves and the objects of our consumption, from a perspective of ‘observation and curiosity’. There is no compassion in judgement. But compassion is inherent and even nurtured in the white light of objective awareness. And it is through her detached focus upon our idiosyncratically normalised consumerism that Jac highlights some of the many possible consequences of our actions, and shows us how limited is our understanding even of ourselves and our own motivations, to say nothing of our understanding of others. Jac’s work speaks to us again and again of the waste we produce as individuals and as a society. In Love Poems she presents us with a series of photographic images printed onto see-through mirrored perspex. The images show fly-tipped one time treasured possessions - a tv set left, dumped, face down in an alley-way; a blue mattress, once a source of such comfort, now abandoned in the street; the legs of a discarded office chair protruding tragically from a laurel hedge. By printing onto mirrored perspex, Jac allows these ‘poems’ to literally capture the viewer and the rubbish in one frame. Clearly pointing at the relationship between the individual onlooker and the anonymous rubbish, the question these visual poems silently ask is - why? It is the extraordinary quantities of stuff we throw away that evidences the very fact that we go to such lengths to deny to ourselves – namely, that our consumption is way beyond what we could conceivably rationalise as requisite to subsistence. The vast scale of our waste generation points categorically to the fact that we are consuming not out of physical need, but to the tune of some other concealed agenda. If our consumption is not compelled by physical need, nor by intellectual need, then the need, presumably, must be emotional? |
Thomas Lindley Environmentalist Excess Essay (fragment) ‘Rural Reality part 2’ is starkly different from ‘part 1’. The playful and engaging elements of ‘part 1’ have turned into a distressing and macabre scene. The piece no longer has clean, manufactured, man-made designer lines. No sharp corners, even planes or mechanically stylised features. The TV set, one of the proclaimed nemeses of the environmentalist, now fluid and organic, wraps the object. But is this a re-discovery, a re-association with nature? It is a new emotion, manipulated by an unsettling form. Here is a betrayal of sorts: that which more fluid, organic and naturally curvilinear is more disturbing than the playful clinical geometry of the television. ‘Part 1’ is safe; it invites an easy and mindful voyeurism where we look to entertain our imagination. ‘Part 2’ is complicated, confrontational and realistic. It represents something more natural, and more cruel. In fact, it is quite repulsive, almost evil. The disturbing associations of ‘Part 1’ are heightened here by a more severe manipulation of the familiar and the sense of violence is more clearly stated this time around. Again, the work of human hands is present here. The piece evokes images of restraint, and torture, perhaps Abu-Ghraib and the hypocrisy of US foreign relations. As an American being exposed to such images through the media, it may be a bit of a stretch and a projection on my part. However, it should at least be stated that I don’t entirely separate the concerns of human rights and environmental accountability. Both are deeply important and underpinned by the issues of equity and equality on a basic and fundamental level, human or otherwise. I am of the view that the denial of and impositions to one person’s human rights is fundamentally a denial and imposition of all human rights. The carelessness and damage placed on one part of the environment and ecosystem is fundamentally damaging to all environments, all ecosystems. Jac’s work is tactile, full of voyeurism, and reflection, all fuelled with a serious sense of humour. Her designs and material choices are all clearly developed out of an intrinsic, natural process and response to growing environmental, economic and social concerns. There is no sense of an artist trying to manipulate an environmental message through a chosen artistic medium. The contexts and messages are intrinsic to the work. We can find and read these messages for ourselves, if we pay any attention. |
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