12 November 2012
Rachel Thorlby won the Celeste Art Prize in 2007.
http://www.celesteprize.com/rachelthorlby
In Lost in Space, Thorlby uses motifs borrowed from classical and monumental sculpture, working with the fragment and exploring how this has evolved to signify a loss of permanent value. Initially the past is revisited through the reproduction, images of monuments and portraits are selected and printed out. Often undergoing a process of disintegration these paper copies form the basis of Thorlby’s exploration of how individuals have been represented throughout history. Throwaway materials are used to undermine the unshakeable solidity of past monuments and once forgotten images are revived by being remade into objects.
The makeshift appearance of Thorlby’s work prompts us to contextualize historic monuments and their authority in a time when traditional materials such as bronze and marble have little meaning for most people. Here the sculptures and their supports appear to be assembled in a hurry, suggesting numerous possibilities of dismantling and reconfiguration and are formed from basic materials such as clay, wax, wood and polystyrene. The lack of preciousness in these materials works against the former magnificence of portraits past, placing the work somewhere between making and destroying, image and object, the living and the dead.
Our relationship with time is also explored through collage; these are the results of the artist’s ongoing search for the ‘perfect’ landscape through stock images on the Internet. Once again the portrait is utilised, in the cutting out of a silhouetted figure through which a partial landscape is revealed. Thorlby’s work questions the legacy of Romanticism and how this continues to resonate in our collective memory. These artificial images, which now exist merely to be consumed, still epitomize notions of the idyllic and highlight the complexities of our relationship to the landscape.
http://www.celesteprize.com/rachelthorlby
In Lost in Space, Thorlby uses motifs borrowed from classical and monumental sculpture, working with the fragment and exploring how this has evolved to signify a loss of permanent value. Initially the past is revisited through the reproduction, images of monuments and portraits are selected and printed out. Often undergoing a process of disintegration these paper copies form the basis of Thorlby’s exploration of how individuals have been represented throughout history. Throwaway materials are used to undermine the unshakeable solidity of past monuments and once forgotten images are revived by being remade into objects.
The makeshift appearance of Thorlby’s work prompts us to contextualize historic monuments and their authority in a time when traditional materials such as bronze and marble have little meaning for most people. Here the sculptures and their supports appear to be assembled in a hurry, suggesting numerous possibilities of dismantling and reconfiguration and are formed from basic materials such as clay, wax, wood and polystyrene. The lack of preciousness in these materials works against the former magnificence of portraits past, placing the work somewhere between making and destroying, image and object, the living and the dead.
Our relationship with time is also explored through collage; these are the results of the artist’s ongoing search for the ‘perfect’ landscape through stock images on the Internet. Once again the portrait is utilised, in the cutting out of a silhouetted figure through which a partial landscape is revealed. Thorlby’s work questions the legacy of Romanticism and how this continues to resonate in our collective memory. These artificial images, which now exist merely to be consumed, still epitomize notions of the idyllic and highlight the complexities of our relationship to the landscape.
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