#91 Gabriele Beveridge, In A Normal World I'd Be There
2 - 21 September
Gabriele Beveridge was born in Hong Kong, 1985. She studied at Falmouth College of Arts and Slade School of Fine Art. Gabriele currently lives and works in London.
A conversation between Amy Leach, Matthew Ferguson, Isabel Gylling and Gabriele Beveridge
Amy Leach: I am intrigued by your use of organic materials, from the geode and different polished marbles to the more commonplace sand and smaller mineral forms. Their juxtaposition against the other images, surfaces and structures within the show creates a rich interplay, blurring the line between the found, made and naturally occurring. I wondered if you could speak more about what draws you to these types of materials and the role they play in your work?
Gabriele Beveridge: I don't necessarily think of things as found vs made, natural vs synthetic. I see the world of things that we exist within more as different states of being. I've always thought of materials in this way, rather than an 80's talk on found vs made. Sometimes I discover a material that gives an expression to one of these states and maybe it will find its way into a finished work. Our way of looking today places a kind of 'time signature' upon everything - there's no neutral - so I like to explore that. So in relation to the specifically "natural" or "organic" material such as the marble, I'm interested in how the feeling that's in that material - of geological time and its purely physical hardness - relates to the frailty of the photograph and the effects of just a few decades that are already discolouring the paper. When I'm working on something that's how I'm making connections, and I'm also looking for how these material differences come together and hold each other in tension. This also applies to the highly polished geodes and the taken-for-granted elements like sand. So in a way, the formal result very much comes out of these intuitions and sensitivities. It's an aggregate of the relations rather than a planned effect.
Matthew Ferguson: A lot of effort has gone into making the exhibition, what have you got out of it or what do you hope to?
GB: I never know until a while later. Sometimes things take their own time to reveal what they were good for. But when I'm working in my studio it never seems like effort! It’s also been very nice to have a chance at OUTPOST to work toward the show over a longer period, and combine some works that have been finished for a while with brand new ones that seemed destined for the space.
Isabel Gylling: For In A Normal World I’d Be There the works on show divide the space into distinct areas, I find myself instinctively playing with positioning myself in relation to the works in a multitude of ways. How much do you consider the audience's presence when you compose the space?
GB: I consider the viewer's position within the entire exhibition, how the works have different presences and weights that are sometimes different from their physical size. So the way they sit in the space is first of all important to the works themselves and then the viewer navigates this arrangement. Sometimes the architectural space has a role in this as well, forcing you to make do or presenting a novelty. But the works very much have boundaries - that's important - and as much as they invite you to look and position they also hold their ground, slip away, say things behind your back. The "audience" question is always something almost political, like 'what are you doing for us?', I can't really say I think about it. A lot of the elements in my work were originally aimed at previous audiences and those act as a foil to how I present them to a new audience though, at one remove or more.
