Freya Jobbins & Shani Nottingham,Γberlastung, 2023. Image courtesy of the artists.
Freya Jobbins & Shani Nottingham
Gallery 2
Friday 1 September - Sunday 24 September
Opening Thursday 31 August 2023, 6pm - 8pm
Γberlastung
(emotional overload)
A state of being beset by intense emotion that is difficult to manage.
βWe all have a loud life; seeking to hide in a safe, quiet, dark space to slow the brain down is something we all seekβ.
This collaborative work was created as a physical confluence of the lives and practices of both artists. With it they explore both their experiences of PTSD, Anxiety and ADHD and how they navigate around these roadblocks with their art.
Combining sustainable practices to produce a dual self-portrait, Shani Nottingham and Freya Jobbins used recycled cardboard, paper, and plastic bread tags.
βWe focused on melding our uses of collage and assemblage. We both like to continuously layer and create repeating patterns; seeking rhythms upon which we can narrow our focus. We find solace from the worldβs uncontrollable disorder as we work in our studios creating our own patterns and rhythms with plastics and collages.β
This work draws upon the worship of Nott, a night goddess from Germanic and Scandinavian folklore. Riding in a chariot drawn by a dark horse across the sky, she pulls the night behind her like a drape. She brings more than just darkness and cold, though. By smothering the world, she brings quiet, order and rest. Darkness β black- absorbs light hungrily, refusing to reflect. With this it has the capacity to grant respite: sparing us from stimuli and allowing thoughts to calm. The artists present the viewer with external noise and, with black, offer them internal visual silence.
About the Artists
Freya Jobbins
She/Her
Instagram @freyajobbins
Southwest Sydney multidisciplinary artist Freya Jobbinsβ work has often been described as provocative, humorous and disturbing, and can seduce and repel at the same time, giving her art practice a powerful uncompromising tenor.
Better known for her plastic assemblages, Freya also creates larger site-specific installations, sculptures, collage, video, and printmaking. Jobbinsβ works are based on appropriation, re-contextualisation and the subversion of pre- existent objects, exploring contemporary gynocentric narratives of the human condition, notions of identity, aesthetics, motifs and her own dissimulation through various media, compelling us to look beyond the literal.
The approach to concept, materials and process within her sustainable practice is of equal importance to Jobbins. Sourcing all her materials including bases in the second-hand market, determined to only use preloved or the found object.
Practicing for over 15 years, exhibiting regionally, nationally and internationally in over 30 selected group shows, 4 ARI solo shows and her first institutional solo 2020 at Wagga Wagga Regional Gallery.
A selected finalist in: McClelland National Small Sculpture Award, Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Sculpture at Scenic World, Silk Cut Award, Tom Bass Prize, PARAMOR Prize, Hidden @ ROOKWOOD, Woollahra &, Willoughby Sculpture Prize, and Fishers Ghost Art Award since 2004.
Shani Nottingham
She/Her
Instagram @shani.nottingham
Based in Central West NSW, Shani Nottinghamβs practice is amalgamated from many strands β from illustration & commercial work to conceptual art, collages, mixed media, photography, sculptural forms & installation. In recent years she has worked with plastic breadtags, transforming them from their initial purpose to create something βother,' investigating the materiality and potentiality of these artefacts of the Anthropocene, creating space for dialogue about waste, sustainability & consumerism. The breadtags have been sent to her from people around the world, making them collaborators in this process. Regardless of medium, Nottinghamβs work explores pattern, colour, repetition, light & shadow. Collecting is a consistent theme too, a process of creating order from chaos, observing similarities & disparities. Nottingham seeks small often overlooked elements in everyday life, finding intimate, ubiquitous moments & objects that bind, comfort or confront & surprise. With a long varied career in art, Nottingham has been in many curated group shows, won several national prizes for her creative practice, & has been featured in books & magazines nationally & internationally. In 2023 she has had two solo shows, at Western Plains Cultural Centre and Cowra Regional Art Gallery. She is a finalist in the 2023 Northern Beaches Environmental Art Prize and a selected artist for Cementa 2024.
