Despard is proud to present Hobart based artist Mish Meijers and renowned Sydney based artist Jenny Orchard, represented by Despard for twenty five years, putting together a visual treat; The Uncanny Valley.
Mish Meijers is an interdisciplinary artist using installation, sculpture, drawing, digital media, and performance, what ever mediums that she thinks will translate and communicate.
Jenny Orchard is among the best known ceramic artists in the country, whose distinctive vibrant figurative works are represented in most public collections nationally. Jenny is completing her phd which is based around ‘The Happy Valley’ we look forward to this new visual phase of her career.
“The name Uncanny Valley seemed just right for this show of my work with Mish Meijers. Her wild and eerie creatures evoke the uncanny, or unheimlich as the Freudian term has it. Her work seems to grasp at the same fundamental questions as those I pursue,- “what is it to be human” and “as sentient creatures what binds us , and what divides us. The term ‘Uncanny Valley’ was originally used by a robotics professor Masahiro Mori, he was trying to understand and identify the point at which a robotic figure would come too close to being human and therefore create a feeling of revulsion rather than empathy. The work in this show may attempt to look at the uncanny or unheimliche from another position though, in that the creatures are asking how far from the human form can we travel and still retain empathy, or a comforting sensation of the familiar. Deliberately creating pareidolia, the tendency we have to see the man in the moon, or faces in rock formations, may cause us to consider we are all part of the moon and stars. Ceramic is a perfect medium for creating evocative creatures. It is the earth, like the Golem, we want to imagine these beings come alive. I often call them “inter beings” inanimate matter, given life and meaning by the viewer, and crossing boundaries of gender, life forms, plant, bacterial and mystical.” Jenny Orchard, June 2016
Review of The Uncanny Valley in Art Guide Australia by Briony Downes, direct link here: The Uncanny Valley – Art Guide Australia
Jenny Orchard – ceramics…
JENNY ORCHARD, Mad Cassowary, 2016, earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 47 x 20 x 23 cm, signed under base SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Truffles, 2016, earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 28 x 23 x 16 cm, signed under base, SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Truffles, 2016, earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 28 x 23 x 16 cm, signed under base, SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Merbrat (detail), 2016, earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 48 x 25 cm, signed under base, SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Teslas Bride, 2015, Earthenware with glazes, 38 x 22 x 14 cm, signed under base, SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Mad Cassowary and Merbrat, 2016, earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 47 high BOTH SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Rapunzel, 2016, Earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 40 x 20 x 20 cm, signed under base, $2,250
JENNY ORCHARD, Rapunzel, 2016, Earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 40 x 20 x 20 cm, signed under base, $2,250
JENNY ORCHARD, Meditating creature, 2016, earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 30 x 22 x 15 cm, signed under base, SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Mad Cassowary, 2016, earthenware with glaze and on-glaze enamels, 47 x 20 x 23 cm, signed under base SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD
Jessie in the Cloud cries golden tears
2016
earthen ware with glaze and on-glaze enamels
30 x 30 x 63 cm
signed under base
SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD, Uncanny Man with furry hat, 2016, earthenware with glazes and synthetic fur, 59 x 20 cm, signed under base
$2,350
Jenny Orchard – collages…
JENNY ORCHARD, Daughters of Beulah (2 of 5), 2016, Archival digital print on paper, 64 x 49 cm, Signed LR, $985
JENNY ORCHARD
The Witch from Everywhere (1of 5)
2016
Archival digital print on paper
60 x 42 cm
Signed LR
$985
JENNY ORCHARD
The Hornbill
2016
Collage and ink on watercolour paper
76 x 56 cm
Signed LR
$1,950
JENNY ORCHARD, Batman, collage on watercolour paper, 57 x 38 cm, signed LR, $1,850
JENNY ORCHARD, Connections, 2016, watercolour and collage on paper, 76 x 56 cm, signed LR, $2,500 (framed)
JENNY ORCHARD
Portrait of Nick Dissolving
2016
Collage and ink on watercolour paper
76 x 56 cm
Signed LR
$1,950
JENNY ORCHARD
Lost in the City at Night
2016
Watercolour and collage on paper
76 x 56 cm
Signed LR
$1,950
JENNY ORCHARD,
Floating and dissolving (detail) (2 of 5)
2016
Archival digital print on paper
60 x 42 cm / ed. of 5
Signed LR
$985
JENNY ORCHARD
Lobster
2016
Collage, gouache, ink and watercolour on watercolour paper
76 x 56 cm
Signed LR
$1,950
JENNY ORCHARD
The Scream
2016
Collage and ink on watercolour paper
76 x 56 cm
Signed LR
$1,950
JENNY ORCHARD
Jessie’s Daughter
2016
Watercolour and collage on paper
76 x 56 cm
Signed LR + LL
$1,950
JENNY ORCHARD, Chameleon Man, collage on watercolour paper, 57 x 38 cm, signed LR, $1,850
JENNY ORCHARD, Lost in the City at Night, 2016, Watercolour and collage on paper, 76 x 56 cm, signed LR, $1,950
JENNY ORCHARD
Metamorphosis
2016
Collage and ink on watercolour paper
76 x 56 cm
Signed LR
$1,950
Jenny Orchard – small watercolours…
JENNY ORCHARD, Ramshackel, 2016, watercolour and collage, 38 x 28 cm, signed LR
$975 (not on display in the show but available)
JENNY ORCHARD, Television made what I am, 2016, watercolour and collage, 38 x 28 cm, signed LR, $975
JENNY ORCHARD, Making Magic, 2016, watercolour and collage, 38 x 28 cm, signed LR SOLD
JENNY ORCHARD
Monkey Ghost Humming
2016
Watercolour and collage
38 x 28 cm
Signed LL
$975
