Annelies Jahn
Drawn to Form
August 30th – September 21st, 2024
In my work I investigate ideas of space, relationship and temporality, as experienced through objects and place. The contingency of these perceptions is observed via the agency of measure to become the process of my art making. For me, all the stages and processes of that making have an equivalence of value. Nothing is an end in itself, but a continuum of the previous action and step towards the next. The work shown at Five Walls is the most recent in a series undertaken since 2019, that have been developed to analyse the intuitive acts of composing work in real space. The initial series, documented a site-responsive intervention constructed with found objects during a residency at Cité Internationale des art, Paris. The relationships between the objects were measured, mapped and plotted in 2D using ‘x/y’ coordinates. These points generated lines of connection which in turn suggested new 3D possibilities. Through 2-dimensional processes, 3-dimensions were revealed, and so became DRAWN TO FORM. Graphite as material, carved from drawing sticks, has been used to realise small 3D objects. The hand-drawn mark on drafting film has spread and rendered the graphite to its original qualities – a crystalline form of carbon flakes – metallic, shifting light and perception. Equal to the 2D and 3D forms it generated, graphite in turn has become a subject.* *Graphite is electrically conductive, resistance to corrosion, and strong at high temperatures. It is used in steel, automotive, aircraft, electronics, energy and nuclear industries. Graphite is a key ingredient of lithium-ion batteries required to drive clean energy and a bigger component that lithium itself. In huge demand, it sits on the Australian Governments Critical Minerals list. This demand is driving growth in the development of synthetic graphite, which unfortunately and perhaps ironically, requires a lot of energy to produce.
