Janette Gay

Cornered

Cornered #1, 2016, HD video looped (1:20 minutes), dimensions variable (screen shot).

Friday 1 – Saturday 16 April 2016

“We are lost between the abyss within us and the boundless horizon outside us.”

Robert Smithson

Cornered, a multi-media digital installation explores the manner in which our increasingly constrained and inward focused urban environments may cause us to be become introspective.

This installation has been constructed in a restricted white gallery space to heighten feelings of being constrained by our environment. As viewers step into the gallery space, constructed white pillars block our view and while windows frame the space. Videos of city buildings, apartments plus random objects found in the city provide digital images that wrap around the corners of the gallery, traversing its walls. In doing so, the constricted white space, dominant in modern architectural spaces, echo the austerity of the blank high rise apartment and office buildings of our large cities. These act as a metaphor for feelings of disconnectedness from others and our communities.

Since the 1920s artists have sought, in T. Leighton words, ‘to rupture the traditional modes of viewing moving images’, as a means of expanding visual representation and our understanding of space.

Janette Gay’s installation echoes the work of artists such as sculptor Robert Smithson, who explore how personal and architectural spaces impact on the individual. In line with this the installation investigates the way in which urban environments, with their grid-like arrangements and white walls rupture space and contribute to a sense of isolation.

Upcoming Event

Janette Gay will be participating in The Artists Are Present on Saturday 16 April with Shalini Jardin and Ainsley Wilcock. Talks start at 2.00pm followed by casual conversation and tea with the artists until the closing of the exhibition at 5.00pm.

Artist Profile

Janette is an emerging visual and digital media artist, currently working between Adelaide and Sydney. She experiments with video, photography, digital technology and installations to explore how the architectural spaces of the urban landscape can confine and impact on our emotional and physical existence.  Janette’s videos focus primarily on creating fictitious worlds from the grids and maze of the city architecture and everyday objects around us.  These altered, immersive spaces enable her audience to consider the emotional impact of their environments.