Deirdre Breen
MA:AP 2020
Deirdre Breen
My practice raises questions about our place as embodied humans in the world and the ways we produce, reproduce and consume our material environment. I am exploring the presupposed meanings that we ascribe to matter, and the underlying perceptual structures that support these meanings.
The work interrogates the idea of an assumed hierarchy of materials, looking at what is disposable and what is venerable, questioning the value of the mundane. In dialogue with disposable culture and commodity fetishism, the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary. Colours reference trends and conventions of contemporary visual culture.
The work suggests a vitality inherent in objects we consider inanimate; industrial and domestic materials are manipulated and redeployed to subvert our associations to their familiar qualities, confronting our understanding of our material reality. A gestural language emanates from the artworks; forms demonstrate object attributes and emulate personality but lack obvious functionality, existing for their illusionary qualities rather than a perceived use. A lively aesthetic speculates on the agentive power of ‘things’ so that a material imagination might unfold.
Clung, 2020
8mm steel bar, acrylic spray paint, jesmonite
Clung (detail), 2020
8mm steel bar, acrylic spray paint, jesmonite
Sprout, 2020
Jesmonite; 8mm steel bar, acrylic spray paint, jesmonite
Left to right: Sporut, Bulge, 2020
Jesmonite; 8mm steel bar, acrylic spray paint, jesmonite, installation view
Bulge, 2020
Jesmonite
Contact Details
Instagram: @deirdrebreen