Bren O’Callaghan A Runaway at the Media Circus!

Samantha Donnelly

Contour States is the first major UK public solo show by British artist Samantha Donnelly. With a strong interest in the images presented in today’s media that continue to idealise and objectify the human form, the exhibition features new work that explores representations of female identity in photography, TV, film and advertisements. Underpinned by references to art history and popular culture, Donnelly’s distinctive work is concerned with the powerful effects of media imagery on the individual, and in particular with how the portrayal of women in the media shapes and defines them.

The following interview between Samantha Donnelly and myself first appeared in the gallery guide for Contour States at Cornerhouse, 28 January – 25 March 2012.

All images courtesy of the artist and Ceri Hand Gallery / photo credits WeAreTape.com

BOC: What would you say are the core themes or values that you explore within your work?

SD: I’m interested in the spaces and places we live in today and how these are re-presented, packaged and sold back to us as aspirations, as dreams or as terrors.

BOC: How has your background as an artist shaped your current practice and techniques?

SD: I studied Time Based Arts, which was a course interested in film, performance, installation and photography, underpinned by conceptual theories. I loved the physical relationship with making as analogue processes were widely used. I took up digital practices slowly and though supremely efficient the process for me lacks the element of surprise, or discovery, which is implicit in analogue. Of course similar effects are possible through digital, but the reverse button enables the producer to manipulate the ideal shot, when most of the time it is the unexpected or the mistake which actually offers more in my opinion… think of Brassai, Eve Arnold and Inge Morath.

BOC: At what point did you begin to focus upon more overtly sculptural assemblage?

SD: It was really after my Master of Fine Arts when I taught myself how to make moulds, cast and model. I was fortunate enough to be awarded the Brian Mercer Bronze Casting Scholarship in 2009, where I learnt the lost-wax casting process over in a foundry in Italy. Over the last 18 months I’ve been working in ceramics too. I’m still very influence by my training when making objects, particularly in photography, as it helps me to see and edit sculptural work using similar methods. I’m also interested in the tension between representation and objects and the interplay of these experiences: the optic / conceptual against the encounter / physical.

BOC: If we were to walk into your studio, what would we see?

SD: It would be hard to walk into it at the moment, as there is an awful lot of work, materials and collections inside. I have multiple boxes of things: conch shells from the seaside; another with ‘exciting and sculptural’ Christmas decorations in, bough on sale in a closing-down bonanza; silk sarongs worn and brought back from travels in India. At last count I had 14 tables in the tiny space stacked up on each other in a rather slapdash and extremely precarious fashion amongst fashion mannequins, wrought iron candelabras, art deco lamps, a selection of hula hoops and fashion belts.

All of these things have built up over a number of years and are all boxed and catalogued in quite a rigorous way. My favourite is the ‘Metal Magic’ box, named as it holds some kind of mystery and surprise. Inside is a selection of small metal objects, fastenings, eyelets, hooks and machine parts that I have absolutely no idea of their intended function other than their interesting patina, shape or potential re-use. It’s strange the way a personal topography looms – do you catalogue by use or by form? Is it an aesthetic or functional decision to how the cataloguing happens?

BOC: Did the work arrive in the galleries complete, or was there any element of creation and continued production on site?

SD: The exhibition has been produced in 3 different countries and so much of the work will only come into being when installing over two weeks at Cornerhouse. Each country has had different time, material and size constraints which means that hopefully once the work sees its other parts there will be an instant resonance, a kind of love story unfolding in fast-forward between the parts to form a critically charged, ruptured whole; one that reveals its seams, histories and structure – rather like Brecht writes about upon Theatre. This makes working on site challenging but it’s also a bit like tuning an orchestra or doing a dress rehearsal: some sections fall straight into place and are just right, others seem somewhat disharmonious. This final part can make some pieces really transform. Placing the work on-site is itself like a durational performance for me, one that I’m not 100% sure of the ending.

This way of working is an extensions of my studio practice, one concerned with layering meaning and cutting and pasting process (like collage). For me this takes away the bombastic nature of the monolith, imbuing the work with a time contingent.

BOC: What do you mean by the title of the show – Contour States?

SD: For me the title suggests something which has a rub of separate entities that are placed or pushed into relationship with each other: ‘Contour’ has an idea of curvature; ‘States’ suggests something either organised in some kind of bureaucracy or actual being-ness: it has a ‘presentness’. There is a connection between the lyrical and the structure that reflects the content of the work and suggests a tension between parts.

-       January 2012