Loop Gallery member Audrea DiJulio did not consciously consider herself an artist until five years ago when she was presented with the question: do you consider yourself to be an artist? Influenced by artists such as Jessica Stockholder, Rachel Harrison, Gordon Matta Clark, Richard Tuttle, and Thomas Hirschhorn, Audrea's imaginative and colourful sculptures defy easy categorization. Finding inspiration in "places that are barely being held together", Audrea's Post-Haste sculptures currently on display at Loop Gallery were created using a hasty-based process. In the following question and answer format, Audrea DiJulio describes her artistic process.
1. What is your process/routine/rituals around creating a sculpture?
"The process follows a history of artists who have sought to understand the materials they are working with by not forcing it to do what it doesn't want to do. This is likely why many of the forms that result have a modernist likeness to them. This seems to be a strong enough tendency that is necessary for me to address these ideas. Mix that up with some relational aesthetics and it is almost formulaic."
2. You describe your process as "hasty". What does that mean exactly?
"It is a word which best describes the process I use to make sculpture. In making the work 'hastily' I am kept from making conscious decisions about the end result and am allowing the work to take its own form. I am then able to frame or emphasize the great things that have resulted and then take off on tangents surrounding those great moments."
3. It appears that you work with found materials. Is that the case or do you purchase materials specifically for a given project? If you use found materials, where do you source them?
"I do all those things. The materials I purchase are inspired by or related to the materials I found. I only source where I find materials if it is contingent on understanding the work in some way. For example, in my last show 'renovation context' all the work was made from materials salvaged from the house that was currently being renovated. This also became the space I used to display the work."
4. What fascinates you about sculpture?
"The play between form and space and the connection it makes between the sculpture as an object, academic theory and the object of reminiscence at the time."
5. I understand that you are currently working on a diploma in civil engineering technology. Are you doing this to enrich your art practice or do you hope to work in that field?
"Both. I don't really know why it has to be one or the other since art is informed by your surrounding environment so how could it not enrich my art practice as well? It is a lateral step that I took in my education which came out of my interest for structures and materials. Civil Engineering Technology has given me room to understand the underlying systems of the things, almost literally. More specifically it was a conversation concerning a book about construction materials and connections, accompanied by two pints of beer, that was the catalyst for signing up with this program. But yes, I plan to work in the field as it satisfies a different part of my brain."
6. What is your next project?
"In May 2010, I am showing in Hamilton at Loose Canon with a photographer I know, Matias Santini. Our show is called "Behind the City" which is an investigation into some spaces we consider to be hidden treasures in Hamilton. The identity of Hamilton is going to drastically change over the next 5-10 years and I want to be part of it actively not passively because I think it is necessary for a city that has been almost entirely dismissed."
To see more of Audrea DiJulio's work, please visit her show Post Haste at Loop Gallery which ends on December 20th or visit her website here.
