Paula Fenwick
Manchester
Much of what I make as an artist, through assemblage, drawing, textiles and photography, explores themes of collections, curiosities and childhood memories.
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The presence of things interests me. I cherish the detritus of every-day life with its moments of pathos or beauty – how ordinary objects can be overlooked but might be imbued with personal significance and every day memories.
I am curious about how to repair, celebrate and articulate memories through drawing, assemblages and display. These are the small incidents of a life, marked in the present. Through re-visiting these objects and physical manipulation, they can be viewed, questioned and re-interpreted.
The personal resonance of an object and its physical qualities become important when I make a decision to include it in my art. Its former function, history and common place associations are all considered in gauging its ‘usability’. The aesthetic qualities of scale, form, patina with age and handling, shape and material are similarly reflected upon in considering how the object might be altered, how it carries the correct associations, and how it ‘stabilises’ the fragile connections with past stories.
My drawings often respond to my small sculptural assemblages. Using collage elements, scans of objects and free drawing, it is a way to push ideas further and more organically. I always use drawing to work around the limitations of the objects and materials but then feed the ideas back into new works.
Display is an important aspect of my work: not only the presentation of art works in a gallery or similar public setting, but also the decisions on how to live with my collections. In the studio, objects from my various collections are all out on display. The items present themselves as potential starting points for art work. There is a process of ‘listening’, of recognising the different voices emerging from a collection, and finding the right time for an object to become integrated or transformed into an art work.
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