Feature image: ‘Big Sauce’ 2014
As well as being a contributor here at Crack in the Road, Sophie Chapman is also a multimedia and installation artist currently in her final year at Central Saint Martins.
I caught up with her ahead of tomorrows CitR Live #3 where she’ll be exhibiting some of her latest work.
CC: One thing that intrigues me about your work is a figurative precariousness and fragility paired with a harshly handled, almost cobbled together aesthetic, how do you manage to balance the two?
SC: Throughout the work, in practice i.e. in making it and when it is done and I am arranging the stuff- there is a constant attempt to balance some areas and off balance others. And it’s tricky. I want some parts of it to build a rhythm and allow the viewer in that way, and other things to throw that off. In doing so I hope to achieve an experience similar to everyday moments of navigation, you always unconsciously try and make sense of what’s going on around you. The objects are like drunk objects, not behaving how they should.
‘Art about cats, exploring consciousness’ 2014
Do you have any overarching themes to your practice or does each piece of work tell us something different?
I am at a moment of trying not to tackle everything at once, even though it feels like I should. To take on examples of the work rather than tackling the world. So the overarching themes relate to consumption I guess, as to drink in experience, bodily, and information wise, is like an ongoing glugging down, even if you don’t want to. Within this is an interest in ‘things’ the feel of things and the colors and textures of things. How this can be fucked with to demonstrate their thingly-ness.
‘Chewing beige, tribute to Rauschenberg’s chicken burger’ 2014
How do you incorporate the viewer in your installations?
I am working really hard right now to do this, it seems to be my main focus. In a physical sense, I’ve been thinking of obstructing entry to the space, changing the way one moves around the ‘stuff’, the affect that has emotionally- if you get to slump into a chair, or stand up too straight not to knock something over. And also in that all the stuff is full to the brim loaded with pop cultural/artistic/historical references, even if half-arsed and not pursued, the pictures of Gazza, the pub carpet, the tie-dyed net curtains rely on the audience’s previous experience of the material, or similar material. So then in a way it becomes up to the individual how far they pull on these different strings, how much they let these signifiers take over the work or not.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on a piece for the CSM open studios event, which will incorporate suggestions of bathroom décor, with the furniture of a corner shop. Also hopefully adding sound to the work for the first time. Which is another element I’d like to play with, another material to throw off the immediate understanding of the work.
I’ve been thinking about this in relation to keeping the work mobile, including changing the arrangement throughout the duration of the show, I think adding sound will create another layer that can be experienced in very slight, momentary ways. Adding to the multiple versions of the work- as people seeing the work at different points in the show, will experience it very slightly altered from each other. I think this keeps the things activated and keep them dying as sculptures.
‘The feeling when your lying on the bed’ 2014
I think this ongoing, open ended-ness relates back to some of my overarching concerns- with wanting to simulate a contemporary perspective of the world, what it is to be around.
Our present moment is one of the constant stream of information and ideas in the present day, things are very much unfinished, unsure, so many half read versions of the truth through the flow of images and language on the internet, the tube, the street etc. This is my way of encapsulating the flux that I am constantly endeavouring and perhaps failing to pin down in my work.
What is at the forefront of your research right now?
I’ve been reading a lot about space, the politics of space. As well as looking at research as practice- process driven work is very important to me, exploring intuition in practice, and the importance of not knowing and uncertainty. There are some great shows on in London at the moment, especially from female artists such as Trisha Baga and Helen Marten, which has been a massive help for my work. I’ve also been looking at poetic strategies, as a messing with language is inherent in what I am into.
I am also researching bean bags and garden chairs, I want to create an inside outside feel, and that slump I was on about. Pointed to the corner at something that is not a TV.
Installation shot ‘Its About to Start’ performance event, Central Saint Martins, 2014
Other than CitR Live #3, where else can we see your work at the moment?
I am showing in an Open Studios event at Central Saint Martins on Friday 14th March and at the Thames Tower Residency Friday 21st March. Soon the second issue of TRIP will be out featuring some of my photographs. And a profile in an upcoming issue of Avenir Magazine.
Thanks Sophie!