Sarah Jefferies Catalogue 1108
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Transcript of Sarah Jefferies Catalogue 1108
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S A R A HS A R A H J E F F R I E S J E F F R I E SWW i t h i ni t h i n t h e s et h e s e w a l l sw a l l s
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All works of art may be viewed online atwww.modbritart.comPaintings are available for sale on receipt of this catalogue
I would like to dedicate this body of work to my husband Alex whohas been incredibly devoted to supporting me through difficulttimes, subsequently he has played a major role in making this showpossible.
Sarah Jeffries
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S A R A H J E F F R I E SWi t h i n t h e s e w a l l s
1 8 t h J u n e - 1 1 t h J u l y 2 0 0 8
WATERHOUSE & DODD
26 Cork Street London W1S 3ND
Telephone +44 (0)20 7734 7800
e-mail [email protected]
www.modbritart.com
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SOLILOQUY
Sarah Jeffries - An Appreciation
Robin Dutt
One might say that the soliloquy represents a vital and special moment in the performance of a play.
Audiences familiar with Shakespeare and his contemporaries will immediately appreciate the soliloquy as a
device, and a pivotal one at that, which is usually highlighted by a centre spot illumination, or conversely
shrouded in symbolic shadow. At this moment the player imparts something to the audience, something
told in confidence - almost as one individual to another. He steps out of the confines of the given drama
and into the realm where fiction and reality merge, mix and become indistinguishable.
In Sarah Jeffries deliberately wrought and vivacious paintings,
one might certainly divine the presence and power of the stage.
One senses its authority, its frozen-slice narrative, its many
guises - from stately home precise proportion to camera shot
perfect interiors culled from lifestyle magazines. Or they may
be visual representations of the legacy of the moment's
obsession with how one lives. It is the question asked more
readily than why ? In some ways these interiors are so full of
clues they become, like Thomas Hardy's Egdon Heath(1), almost
as valid as the characters that populate them.
In essence, it may seem a relatively simple idea. The central
figure, in fact in all works the only figure, is culled from familiar
(usually fashion shoot) imagery reflecting the laissez faire
relaxed and reality poses of life - a far cry from the style
exactitudes of such celebrated icon makers such as John French,
(1) The fictitious heath which serves as the settingfor Hardys novel, The Return of the Native
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Richard Avedon and David Bailey. These are iconic names themselves who
brought much to the understanding of the fashion pose and its changing nature
at arguably one of the most exciting times of fashion history, from the 1950s to
the 1970s.
It is not strange how au fait most of us have become with the ironic, less than
iconic, general pose of so much contemporaneous fashion. The label and the
ubiquity of copied, favoured design - and even fakes - speak much more than the
original design itself much less its intent. The celebrity culture, fuelled by a
seemingly endless televisual rant has turned viewers into voyeurs - unabashed
and unashamed ones at that - for whom living life vicariously through those with
fame or actors who play parts is more real than their own lives.
The pose of defiance, arch boldness, confrontation we glean through the vulgar
immediacy of frantic advertising - as intrusive as it is deliberatively seductive. We
see this pose again and again in magazines, echoed on the art-directed covers of
CDs, the inescapability of the Internet, the vacuous nonsense of most
promotional videos. But the problem with much of these instances is that irony is
overused and so loses its own special efficacious effect, which can only be
evinced when done so in moderation.
Irony, partnered by an actual physical as well as attendant mental appreciation of
juxtaposition, is at the heart of every Jeffries painting. The artist herself
acknowledges the carefully chosen body poses and attitudes of her subjects, the
better to place them in harsh or harmonic context and so, the better to inform
the intent.
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We are all out of kilter, says Jeffries, the models look sulky or slightly unhappy - not satisfied. There is
a sense of their not belonging and there is also certain numbness.
Identifying also the fact that by choice, she has eschewed soul in her expressions, she has also however,brought a unique visual language, immediately and eloquently expressed by the range of the subjects and
their contexts. They provide in many cases, easily appreciable narratives, their deliberately chosen,
purposefully at odds background providing both foil and additional elements of the intended story.
And, this is where the concept of a freeze-frame soliloquy becomes relevant and vital. Some works are
immediately more suggestive of the actual treading of the boards in a classical way, hinting in at least
two cases, a grand design suggestive of immovable tradition.Boy with Flag juxtaposes a contemporary
male fashion type, a nod to what has become the current day urban rock dandy, his form pleasingly
ectomorph and suggestive of a teenager. He sports a Union Jack almost as a second thought, suspended
somewhat disdainfully from betwixt thumb and index finger of his right hand. It looks a little like a
deflated balloon. It may also remind us, with the boys stance
in mind, of a matador contemplating at some safe distance his
eventual quarry.
The deliberate effect of a classic stage and the soon to be
delivered soliloquy is enhanced by his standing in the spotlight
of a sunlit patch of captured window frame and set of panes,
the latter which bleaches the eighteenth century, appropriately
wide wooden floor boards. A portrait in a classic oval gilt frame
of a red-coated Augustan patrician seems to recede into the
past within this room that represents the past with this possible
scion an ironic presence. The flag, in this case, might take on a
more deliberately revolutionary meaning. The rooms beyond
stretching away are of course suggestive of a time line.
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A direct contrast might be the Asian female model posed in urban Americana
casual clothes, rendered in hues of the United States tricolour. She is pasted
onto a scene that includes a recliner bearing an insane whirligig pattern of
stylised sunflower heads but they are haemoglobin red, not sunny yellow and so,more akin to sinister, spinning saw teeth rather than petals. Aluminium buckets
of curiously clashing living flowers and other props all served up on a corporation
muffin coloured short-twill carpet.
The boy sitting disaffected in the nouveau riche setting of his parents domicile
surrounded by fake but undoubtedly expensive Louis XIV gilt-edged everything
looks as if he could and should be sitting on a wall which informs the boundary of
a council estate and the street along with similarly disaffected youths. The irony?
He sports a curb-link gold chain, doubly ironic because his jewellry is no doubt
street-real to impress, in amongst the gilt of his parents perceived
comprehension of bon chic bon genre - or any of its equivalents around the
world.
In many of Jeffries paintings, and with a nod to the stage again, she utilises the compositional device of
formally grand or designer chic curtains. This might put in mind another dramatic device, the array, behind
which secrets are heard and characters have daggers plunged into them. Colours both acid-bright and
coolly pastel, by turns, flare or hum.
I am asking the viewer to question whether a person is disjointed from his or her environment, the artist
says. The basic set up is to look at what happens within four walls.
The answer to this is as ironic, enigmatic, juxtapositional and challenging as Sarah Jeffries work itself.
Robin Dutt
May 2008
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1Man with Union Jack
Oil on board 33 x 45 in / 84 x 114 cm
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2Girl with black stilettos
Oil on board 43.5 x 37.5 in / 111 x 95 cm
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3Girl with wallpaper
Oil on board 21.5 x 18 in / 55 x 45 cm
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4Boy in mirror
Oil on board 51 x 41.5 in / 130 x 105 cm
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5Girl in window
Oil on board 48 x 45 in / 122 x 114 cm
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6Boy with flag
Oil on board 43.5 x 47.5 in / 110 x 120 cm
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7Girl in braces
Oil on board 41 x 37.5 in / 104 x 95 cm
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8Geek chic
Oil on board 47 x 43.5 in / 120 x 110 cm
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9Boy in boots
Oil on board 45 x 33 in / 114 x 84 cm
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SARAH JEFFRIESBorn: England, 1979
Education
2002-04 Royal College of Art, MA Painting1999-02 Buckinghamshire & Chilterns
University College, BA (Hons) Fine Art
Solo Shows
2008 Within these walls,Waterhouse & Dodd , London
2004 Persona, Putignano Arte, Italy
Selected Group Shows
2008 The painting room,Transition Gallery, London
2007 Start your collection,Contemporary Art Projects, LondonWinter Exhibition 2007,Contemporary Art Projects, London
2006 Your Gallery @The Guardian,The Newsroom Gallery, LondonSummer show, Foster Art, London
Young British Art,Christie's, LondonDreamland,The Chambers Gallery, LondonThe Kiss,The Arts Club, LondonPRIMEtime:Painting - young art from London,Galerie Seitz & Partner, Berlin
2005 Hollow Salon 2005,Hollow Contemporary, LondonUtopia/Dystopia,Zimmer Stewart Gallery, SussexWe've been here before,Blyth Gallery, LondonThe Kiss,Spectrum Fine Art, London Art 26, Tsunami Disaster Fund, London
2004 Xmas Tree,Gallery 39, LondonChase Art Exhibition,
2004 Henry Moore Gallery RCA, London Artists of Fame and Promise,
Spectrum Fine Art, LondonThe Show,Royal College of Art, LondonEmerging R.C.A. Artists,Urban Outfitters, London
2003 Secret, Royal College of Art, LondonWho's Howie,Royal College of Art, London
2002 Secret, Royal College of Art, London
Publications
2007 The Alchemists,Louisa Buck,Vogue, October, London
2006 Alive and clicking, Jonathan Johns,The Guardian, 19/10/06, LondonCharles Saatchi - Your Gallery,The Guardian, 06/09/06, LondonLondon For Free,Metro, 31/08/06, London
2005 Front Cover, Mininas Magazine
Issue 7, Sao Paulo, BrazilSarah Jeffries,First Point Magazine,Summer 2005, Issue 1, London
2004 Don't Call Us Call Them,MarmaladeWinter 2004, Issue 5, LondonIn Mostra, Flash ArtDecember/January Issue 2004/05,Rome, ItalyInterni Borghesi Della Jeffries,La Republica, Rome, Italy
Awards
2004 Runner-up, Fine Art Pyramid Award,Deutsche Bank, London
1999 Painting Skills of The Year,Canterbury College, Kent
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Catalogue written and published by Waterhouse & DoddText by Robin Dutt
Printed by Creative Press
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