The 3/3/3 exhibition presented the new work of three gifted recent UWIC Graduates; Emma Little, Rachel Parry-Jones (winner of the Studentship Award of Fine Art 2007)and Will Woon.
Located at The Old Library, The Hayes, Cardiff, CF10 1BH, the exhibtion ran from 3rd-9th December 2007.
www.three-three-three.org.
This exhibition was supported by g39.
Artist Statements
Emma Little
Reinterpretation can encourage fresh perspectives; a recycling of stale thoughts. It is with this in mind, together with a playful curiosity, that I begin to construct new objects.
This latest series of sculptures reveal investigations into a small number of divergent materials, allowing their disparities to become further emphasized. Choices of size and construction are adapted from particular functional and commonplace items; ladders, cushions etc, but are not selected due to their formal values alone. An attraction towards vanitas themed still life works, and the selection of objects brought together to convey messages of moral significance, instigated a number of enquiries into the properties of some of those objects. The forms that have resulted from this endeavour help us to question the physicality and functional properties of the original items, and how these relate to their current symbolic value.
Rachel Parry-Jones
Cardiff based artist Rachel Parry-Jones studies the family and examines how it is possible to claim unknown ancestors as our own. Her work attempts to contextualise herself within her own family through the manipulation of photographs, inserting herself into ancestral family portraits as if she were a contemporary of these characters; an attempt to make a connection simply through her presence. Much of her work is a bridge between present generations and the intangible past that is both fascinating and dis-orientating. At the same time as this, Rachel explores the physical traits that are passed down through the generations. Is the face, something that seems so personal and intrinsically bound with your identity, little more than an heir-loom, a second-hand attribute that has been passed down from your parents and their parents before them? The changing roles within the family offer great opportunities for exploration:- the complexities of the relationships between parent and child, and the possible reversal of roles in advancing years.
Will Woon
Left to its nature, clay sits in the earth within pleasant isolation. We liberate the clay, put it to work to our own ends. And we shape it to our image as it records our touch. With time our dialogue with clay can become deft and confident; yet it is still alien, idiotic, like a numb limb which begrudges us the movement but for the transaction of food and blood. This appendage is attached and as we learn to move it, it quickens to produce form and we in turn, become attached to clay. In as much as clay is in our nature, its weight impresses upon us.
Three supports which uphold the weight of three columns that can not stand by themselves. Statuettes, in figure or an archway, formed to uphold. Terra-cotta armies they are more akin, where they are thousands these are three. To uphold and support their mission but with nothing left to bolster, the supports that bind the material will crumble and become dust.
