sarah jefferies catalogue 1108

7/30/2019 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



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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



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8Geek chic



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9Boy in boots



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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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sarah jefferies catalogue 1108

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