Julia Rosa Clark at João Ferreira
by Kim Gurney
I heard an alarming piece of news recently. The mullet, that dodgy haircut with short top and long back (aka business in the front, party at the back), is making a comeback. Word has it the mullet is so kitsch, it's fashionable again.
Whether or not this is true, what does it have to do with an art review? Michaelis Masters student Julia Rosa Clark walks a similarly precarious line between kitsch and cool with her highly decorative artwork in 'A Million Billion Gazillion' at João Ferreira Gallery.
It is the kind of show that, with less discernment, could descend into a shabby affair with its cheap and gaudy hair pins, elastic bands, glitter, polystyrene, hand-scribbled notes and collage cut-outs. Instead, Clark has pulled off a professional exhibition with a satirical punch that assaults the senses.
Clark operates like a scanner, picking up signals from the objects around her through continual rummaging, obsessive collecting, shredding and sorting. She connects these otherwise disparate threads into a new form that transcends its original context.
Collage as a prevalent medium thus seems particularly apt: 'My collage work is also an analogy and keys into contemporary life - creating knowledge, taking it, recycling and recreating,' she adds.
In this manner, Clark has transformed the interior of the upstairs gallery into a cross between party and schoolroom d�cor with a riot of colour. Works bleed into one another in a flow seemingly designed for the space. Yet it still manages to retain that gallery ambience with an ambiguous dance between art object and bric-a-brac.
The show begins on the stairwell, with brightly coloured tape on the floor and a twisted DNA-type construction hanging from the roof as a playful introduction. A note of thanks to her collaborators, who helped cut and paste, and the works in the gallery start to vie overwhelmingly for attention.
This is entirely intentional. Clark's show is part commentary on information systems - the way knowledge is recorded, distributed and digested and its manifestations in the world around us.
How one navigates through this overload is also relevant and the exhibition in a sense parodies that. Viewers pick their way own way but the layout does have some order to it and the pieces all inter-relate.
They work together, but separate, the pieces still reflect the whole. This unifying characteristic saves the show from its wide-ranging and disparate critiques that could risk fracturing the works into separate enclaves of meaning.
The more schematic works are hung on the walls. In Spew, six open mouths regurgitate ribbons of text asking 'what is a constellation?' and 'how did halloween originate?' Alongside, Gimme Gimme Gimme Volcano recalls information models in keeping with the school-like mode.
Around the corner, two cubicles serve as foils with their edgy investigations into more illicit learning spaces like club culture. Crazy Bitch (SWF) is a powerful work which can be read with its feminist intentions or just appreciated for its aesthetic appeal.
Further along, works like God's Wrath: Halitosis speak more about nature and the influence of technology, while two chokers made of hairpins reference gender issues. A huge pin-board on the final wall acts as mind map of associations.
The titles alone make witty reading. Fuck me in your red sports car sets up an irreverent take while Africa Map: The World Party Spread Out and Scatter D'n'B Remix Version tags confetti baskets labeled with the names of African countries.
Humour runs strongly through the work. While Clark is not a cartoonist, her work recalls that master of the comic genre Conrad Botes who packages his subversive artworks in alluring colour and elegant line.
While his graphic style has a more sophisticated appeal, Clark also seduces the viewer with colour, glitz and glam. Her exhibition is pretty - in a decorative, girl-ish way - but with a pointed purpose that Botes shares: to sugar-coat the bitter pill.
This uncomfortable contradiction between form and content lies at the heart of both their work. While Botes pits Mickey Mouse against Richie Rich in a fight to the death, Clark pins a toy 'golliwog' doll to a sea of layered white faces in Stage Diver. Both make their points with a wry smile.
Clark's show is refreshingly unpretentious. The artworks speak for themselves. Understanding that 'A Million Billion Gazillion' makes commentary about knowledge systems adds to its meaning but appreciation is not contingent upon it.
This unfussy manner extends to the everyday materials, which are both a practical solution to inexpensive art-making while creating freedom to experiment. Clark says: 'It looks fragile and dainty but each piece is rebuilt three or four times. The materials allowed me to work in a way that was not precious.'
July 7 - 31
