Julia Parkinson

These works explore the phenomenology of material. They concentrate on particular properties that maximise the potential of substances coalescing together. There is a chemistry to them. An alchemy of matter.

An action of pouring takes place on aluminium panels and as the material moves through a state of flux a stationary point is found. The work investigates slow time, as a static point is fixed, as the piece transitions from liquid to solid, suspending the pigment in its process of drying. While initiating the process, the metamorphosis can be quite independent. Chance mixes with control with often unexpected outcomes. The key tenants are transmutation, change and temporality.

There is a performative element to the work, a static animation, as the medium arrives at its destination to reach a state of immobility. In this, there is an ontological enquiry as the work reaches a state of being, a stationary ‘becoming’. It finds its objecthood. 

The work is driven, like much of my work, by an interpretation of landscape. The fixing of the liquid malleability seeks to capture a changing terrain. It marks time, it marks rhythms; it takes a snapshot of geological time.

The changing state of the surface of the work echoes the changing states of landmass viewed from an aerial perspective. Form is found by referencing the earth’s surface and the changes that come upon it through either natural or manmade forces.

Sea or air-scapes are suggested. The mutations of the paint echo the way water sculpts our land or air currents shape our skies. These turbulent environments are ever changing and these works seek to capture the elemental forces at work. Localising the vast expanses into panoramas that mimic the horizontal scenes we view. They are trying to arrive at a deep stillness, where unruly currents become settled and time stands still.