Flat Land, 2008 

Inner Moments of Complete Blankness
2003
Embroidery on organdy

Untitled
2007
Embroidery on organdy
43 11/16 x 43 11/16 in. (111 x 111 cm)
Photo: Todd-White Art Photography
 

Nocturne
2004
Embroidery on organdy
84 x 84 in. (213.4 x 213.4 cm)
Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin

Jessica Rankin

White Cube

via

le territoire des sens

 

Appropriating methods traditionally identified with feminine pursuits – embroidery and needlework – Jessica Rankin’s work features a series of ‘mental maps’, with codes, signs and symbols that explore ideas of memory, intuition and interpretation.

Rankin’s embroidered paintings begin with coloured panels of organdy, a fabric known for its sheer, diaphanous quality. Into this material the artist stitches renderings of mountain terrains, thermodynamic charts and astronomical maps, all of which mutate into lines of text before collapsing back into landscape drawing. The text assumes an abstract quality, executed in capital letters that call to mind the embroidered works of Alighiero Boetti. Taking the form of random thought patterns, these strings of words slip into phrases that avoid narrative structure from one to the other WHENYOUHIDEINTHESHADOWSYOUBE

COMEME;IWANTEDTOSCREAMBUTINSTEAD

DIDSOMEWEIRDSORTOFJIG. An interest in Surrealist and concrete poetry is evident in the work, with the arrangement of words as objects and rhythmic lines that form an integral part of the imagery.

Rankin’s compositions are influenced on one level by personal experience – a road trip, camping under the night sky or snippets of conversation – and on a more universal level, by cartographic, cosmological or genetic diagrams, amongst others. Commencing with what she terms ‘a decisive act’ – a particular phrase or image – these elements develop organically, winding through the work like a street or river. Positioned several inches from the wall, the translucence of the organdy enables the forms to reverberate, casting faint shadows on the surface behind. As a whole, Rankin sees the structure of the work as an ‘embodiment of thought’.

Jessica Rankin was born in 1971 in Sydney, Australia and lives and works in New York. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the US, Europe and Australia. Recent solo exhibitions include PS1 Contemporary Arts Center, New York (2006) and Franklin Artworks, Minneapolis (2005).

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