Feature JAMFACTORY ICON CATHERINE TRUMAN Words by Margaret Hancock Davis Margaret is Senior Curator at JamFactory and curator of JamFactory Icon <strong>2017</strong> Catherine Truman: no surface holds.
Launched in 2013, JamFactory’s annual icon series celebrates the achievements of South Australia’s most outstanding and influential artists working in crafts media. South Australia’s leading contemporary jeweller and artist Catherine Truman was selected as JamFactory’s <strong>2017</strong> Icon. Her exhibition no surface holds presents an in-depth survey of the works produced over the last two decades, at the nexus of art and science. Through multiple sciencebased residencies, Truman has cultured many special and enduring relationships with anatomists, and histologists, neuroscientists and natural scientists, microscopists and ophthalmologists. These bonds of trust are at the heart of many of the works found in the exhibition. JamFactory’s Senior Curator, Margaret Hancock Davis, recently caught up with Truman at Gray Street Workshop to uncover some of the research and thinking behind the works in this exhibition. Catherine, your first foray into the science-based residencies was a broad-based interaction with the scientists and collection managers at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in 1997. How did this residency come about and what did you hope you would experience there? This was such an important residency and it was a complete surprise of the best kind. In 1995 Judy Kean, a curator from the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory offered a two-month residency where I was to have free reign, working with the resources of the museum, including the staff. When I arrived I remember feeling overwhelmed, not really having a clue where to begin. It was a complete tabula rasa – totally new territory, wonderful and awe-inspiring. I decided the best way in was to meet with as many people there as I could, and just simply observe, listen and learn. I do remember asking lots of questions. I found the scientists to be the most curious of beings, and spent two months gradually unravelling the amazing parallels between us. I felt completely at home in their laboratories learning the rigors of scientific rule. But actually it was the very human side, the nuanced self-expression I noticed seeping through the science that got me hooked. I have read that you are intrigued by the role of intuition, interpretation and practical human skill plays in the communication and expression of subject matter in both the artist studio and scientific research laboratory environments. Through your residencies you note that the processes of science and art are not so dissimilar, in what ways is this the case? To describe the colour of a shell as a flush of blush pink is quite evocative, yes? That’s the line I remember reading in a scientific publication written by one of the scientists I worked with in Darwin describing one of his favourite molluscs. It led me to question that if two scientists were describing the very same species and following all the rules of taxonomy, would those descriptions be exactly the same? Highly unlikely… We are all different. We each have a slightly different slant on the world and we bring a unique perspective and a unique library of skills to the ways we attempt to interpret life. I find that concept both logical and confronting, especially when it comes to how knowledge is generated about the human body – our anatomy. Ian Gibbins, neuroscientist, anatomist, poet and filmmaker, my collaborator of many years says: Somehow both scientists and artists have a level of self-belief that drives them to produce new work that they feel the rest of the world needs to know about. Yet, (good) scientists and artists alike are driven by self-doubt, uncertainty of the validity of their directions, having far too many ideas to effectively pursue at any point in time. In the end, what keeps both scientists and artists going is the excitement and challenge of being totally immersed in uncertainty, with just enough confidence that there is a way out to keep going… As part of your arts practice you spend time writing. One of your beautiful pieces of poetry is A Morning’s Anatomy. Written during the first anatomy class you attended in 2008 with second-year medical anatomy students, the poem is in many ways a meditation on how you felt or how others around you may have been responding to your presence in the room. I do write a lot. The writing is a grounding strategy, no doubt. In this instance it was a way of absorbing the fine detail of the experience – writing this way, without filters is so direct. I often use this strategy as a way of drawing out an immediate response to something that seems unfathomable at first glance. Almost like bypassing the analysis so I can get to the crux of how I really feel. It’s incredibly personal and revealing. This piece of writing in particular helped me deal with the profound nature of the subject matter in that room that day. It also acted as a bridge between Ian and myself. I read it to him later and he said it was the first time he had had his teaching reflected in such a way. We based a lot of our future work on the seeds sown that day. I have been very interested by your observation that anatomical representations are not a passive representation of a subject rather they are imbued with the makers or artist hand, they are individualistic. I have been fascinated with the history of the representation of human anatomy for many years. Every representation of the human body by another human being, an image, a model, is filtered somehow by someone else’s experience. The images we carry of the body, of our bodies, are hand made by others. That thought alone will keep me amused for a very long time, especially as the technology for imaging the body develops into the future. We still only glimpse human anatomy and physiology. The subject is immense and no one person can claim conclusive knowledge of it, ever. In recent years you have collaborated with a number of artists on projects, in particular, the microscopy project presented at Flinders University Art Museum in 2014. Has working in a shared space i.e. Gray Street Workshop helped prepare you for such projects? ISSUE 05 / 21
Change language