SUSAN JACOBS
cccCLEAVETH
2025 MELBOURNE ART FAIR
20-23 February, 2025 / Preview & Vernissage 19 February / Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, South Wharf, Melbourne. {PurchaseTickets}
Following the series of sculptural relief works under slumped glass entitled Worlds (2023), Cleaveth (2024) evokes skins, hides, and shrouds, encased in reliquary-like framed vessels.
Fragments of cloth are immersed in a composite of liquid acrylic resin and gypsum powder, quickly setting into porous organic forms shaped by timing and chance. These are then exposed to concoctions of organic and synthetic substances, triggering chemical reactions, stains, cracks and accretions akin to bodily or historical residues. A concoction, unlike a rational mixture, blends but with the allusion of a story or imaginative construction - like a stew of skin and bone, myth and sinew with pearlescent broth bubbling to the surface.
The word Cleaveth carries dual meanings: to adhere and to sever. The act of tearing and tensioning the battered cloths transforms them, hinting at anthropomorphic imagery that once seen, sticks - even if only by the skin of its proverbial teeth. Skin, as a mediator, connects us to others and the environments we inhabit. Slumped glass panels breathe in and out, creating reflective surfaces that urge us to move to see within, or to use our own shadows to access intimate internal spaces.
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Following the series of sculptural relief works under slumped glass entitled Worlds (2023), Cleaveth (2024) evokes skins, hides, and shrouds, encased in reliquary-like framed vessels.
Fragments of cloth are immersed in a composite of liquid acrylic resin and gypsum powder, quickly setting into porous organic forms shaped by timing and chance. These are then exposed to concoctions of organic and synthetic substances, triggering chemical reactions, stains, cracks and accretions akin to bodily or historical residues. A concoction, unlike a rational mixture, blends but with the allusion of a story or imaginative construction - like a stew of skin and bone, myth and sinew with pearlescent broth bubbling to the surface.
The word Cleaveth carries dual meanings: to adhere and to sever. The act of tearing and tensioning the battered cloths transforms them, hinting at anthropomorphic imagery that once seen, sticks - even if only by the skin of its proverbial teeth. Skin, as a mediator, connects us to others and the environments we inhabit. Slumped glass panels breathe in and out, creating reflective surfaces that urge us to move to see within, or to use our own shadows to access intimate internal spaces.
Jacobs has exhibited extensively both in Australia and Internationally including at the 32nd São Paulo Bienal, NEW10 The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne Now, The National Gallery of Victoria, The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial, QAGOMA and the 12th Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art.