Janice Redman
Untitled, 1998, wooden domestic tools, cotton batting, cloth, wax, 18" x 15", Collection of Stephania and James McClennen
My work is directly rooted in my everyday experience and my own personal history. My mother is a seamstress and a lace maker, my father restores antique clocks, working in a small shed at the bottom of the garden. The rest of my family have worked in the wool mills or steel industry, making tools. I come from a family of "makers," and that is what I do, I make things. Using domestic objects I know and have an intimate connection to, I work intuitively, and in a lot of cases repetitively, where the act of making becomes a personal ritual, a process of revealing that which lies beneath the surface of the everyday.
—Janice Redman
Janice Redman's sculptures, made of ordinary utensils and other things found in her kitchen, are surrounded by a sense of history and mystery. She creates her artwork out of objects she has a personal connection to, things she has used. Spoons, stoppers, cups and saucers—common household utensils—are preciously preserved as if they were just taken out of a cabinet or drawer, but they will never be used again. Redman has mummified these items—tightly and carefully stuffing, wrapping, and sewing them in soft, dingy cloth or enclosing them in hydrocal plaster. Rendered useless by their protective jackets, all of the keys are too thick to fit any lock; faucets are perpetually turned off; and teaspoons can no longer measure or stir. The activity in which all these household objects formerly participated has been silenced and stilled. It makes one wonder when they were last used and what their past lives were like. They have been transformed into surrealist objects that can only quietly hang on the wall or sit in the room. Some, though, have finally begun to wriggle out of their casings, breathe through their many tiny drilled holes, and escape Redman's nurturing yet smothering hold.
—Jennifer Uhrhane
Curatorial Fellow
Please join the artist for an informal gallery talk on Saturday, July 28 at 3pm.
