Artist Statement

Jenny Pope is a visual artist producing a range of work from small delicate objects to large-scale sculptural pieces. She is intrigued by the physicality of materials, making processes and the meaning of objects.

At the core of her working practice is experimentation with the limits and possibilities of materials such as porcelain, components of concrete, felt and paper. Through a process of research and serendipitous play into their physicality, structure and fragility she responds to the tactile viscous immediacy embodied in the substances.

Her pieces are an exploration of the experience of mindfulness. She use the analogy of weathering of objects to suggest the uncertainty and changes we all face as human beings, as Robert Macfarlane describes ‘the appalling transience of the human body’. She explores ways to convey a continual attempt to be in the present moment in a world fuelled by busyness.

Walking along the fluctuating and permeable edge of the seashore, she uses discovering objects at the tide line as both a meditative activity and practical taxonomy of found relics. By selecting and responding to the man-made fragments, she draws awareness to remnants of information, patterns of indents, holes and the repetitive worn surfaces from an object being used. Like artists Mark Dion and Robert Callender, her exploration also suggests links between archeology, taxonomy although she also examines the intuitive/primitive use of found objects as contemporary worry beads.