Sharon Jewell's art practice

If you look back in the older posts of this blog, you will see that I have wanted to include the work of Sharon Jewell from the beginning of the project. Her drawings & objects would have been good for the first exhibition of 'slow' works, and we had discussed it right back more than a year ago when the Pace project was first being planned. But then Sharon heard the great news that she had been successful in getting the Australia Council studio in Helsinki for (I think) 3 months in the beginning of 2011. 

Back home by the time of the second exhibition Fast Friends, Sharon took part not in the exhibition, but in the Fast Friends event (talking with artists) at the opening of that show. Now you will be able to see her work in Local Velocity.

Here's some of her previous work, titled "First City", a timber construction, about the size of the top of a kitchen table. This view is looking down from above the work:

But a kind of theme running through the Pace project has been talking about artist residencies, what they are, how important the time on a residency can be for an artist's practice, how the place may be influential on later work, etc.

And could the general idea of an artist residency be adapted to work as a great life experience for those who are not professional artists?  Like a retreat I suppose, but there is nothing to say that a residency can't be a very social occasion ... and they often are.

So I have asked Sharon to give a talk based around thoughts and experiences of her time in Helsinki. Part travelogue perhaps, part observation about how people in different places see the role of artists, the talk will be an important part of the opening of Local Velocity - don't miss it! More on the talk in a later post. Here's Sharon having a good time in a very different climate from Brisbane's ....