Jennifer Aldred

Felt-tips are designed to be flat and homogenous, so I'm always dealing with the recalcitrance of the medium; by rubbing pens together or leaving drawings in sunlight I create new tonality. The vocabulary of the text in my drawings suggests the characters learned english through the internet - texting, social media, pop songs. As well as juxtaposing the associations of the felt-tips, my plasterboard surfaces bring to mind wall-drawings - those found in ancient caves, public toilets, and children’s bedrooms. Or internet message ‘boards.’ These are basic forms of public expression.

‘Things hold life in place. Like pebbles on a blanket at the beach they stop it from drifting away or flying up in your face.’ Claire Louise Bennett, Checkout 19. I'm looking at social classes of objects; how identities are built up of materials, possessions, and time; and how this is manifest at the intersections of the physical and the digital.

Wider themes include human interaction; fantasies and desires propagated on the internet; our lives archived on phones. Where is reality? Is texting talking? Selfie camera as mirror; homogenization of expression; the performativity of glamorous objects; dissemination and degradation of luxury into common culture; wanting and fragility.