Marmalade Issue 5, 2017

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 2017
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