Philippa Beveridge at work in the studio.
GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Philippa Beveridge: We live in a society that sanctifies memory, keeping traces of each story and each object, sometimes obsessively. My own work questions notions of temporality: absence and displacement, identity and a sense of belonging. I often use printing techniques to produce my work, so that the glass exists as an object and the printed image as a ‘trace’, a reminder. My recent series of works, “Lost and Found”, started during my artist’s residency in France, deals with the concept of collective and individual identity through the everyday form of a purse – a belonging which is often lost, stolen or mislaid, full of sentimental value and charged with personal memories.
Philippa Beveridge, Lost and Found, 2009.
To create this first series of purses, I invited the local residents to visit me at the studio and show me the contents of their purses. Through printing and photography techniques, I built on the theme of traces, highlighting the objects and details found in the purses to forge histories and construct identities. The resulting imagery, trapped in the material, expresses notions of time, memories and sentiments which lean towards metaphorical interpretations in relation to one’s own past. I have just finished a new series of glass purses for a show called “Remarkable Glass” in London which contain different, more personal images: ancient maps of London, old photos of relatives and children from different ethnic backgrounds – part of my eternal search for my own identity.
Apart from the “Lost and Found” series, I also worked on an installation, “The Human Presence in the Absence of a Figure”, taking inspiration from an abandoned zinc architectural detail emblematic of the area together with imagery inspired by writings, quotations, road maps and other architectural details. My chosen form of the breastplate – a form which I have used intermittently for the past few years – although it protects, also represents a certain vulnerability at a given time and its fragility raises the question of threatened identities and personal expression in contemporary society. The objects contain a vitrified memory, but the body remains absent. Bearing in mind that I hold a Master’s degree in Art in Architecture, the installation of the work and organisation within the space is always of great importance to me. By juxtaposing and repeating forms, I try to increase, one step at a time, my understanding of the relationship between the past and present and by multiplying the breastplates, the work belongs to both time and space.
I will also continue working with the mirrored breastplate “The Custodian of Memory”, which was first exhibited together with a collection of photographs in 2007. By capturing the fleeting and transitory, it provides a record of my own personal journey, both physically and spiritually. So far, I have used it as a ‘blank canvas’ – the vehicle for new series of works in photography and hope to use it in audio-visual projects in the future.
Philippa Beveridge, The Human Presence in the Absence of the Figure, 2009.
I am also about to embark on a new body of work inspired by an idiosyncratic poem written and recorded by the Scottish artist Ivor Cutler. I often use literature and music as a source of inspiration for my work, knowing the title of the piece before I’ve even started to create the work. Other times, the title comes once the work is in process or has been completed.
GLASS: What artwork have you experienced recently that has moved you, and got you thinking about your own work?
Philippa: I went to see the Sophie Calle show “Prenez soin de vous” (Take Care of Yourself) at the 19th Salle Labrouste reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I love the honesty of her work, her depiction of human vulnerability, and expression of identity and intimacy. Writing this now makes me wonder how much I may have been subconsciously influenced by this show when I embarked on “Lost and Found”. The setting was also wonderful and the architecture and surface decoration contained in such historic buildings provide me with a constant source of inspiration.
I also enjoyed the Francis Bacon retrospective at the Prado Museum in Madrid. Apart from the fantastic use of colour, his work is so emotionally charged, so full of energy that one cannot help but be moved by it. In fact, I ‘stole’ the “The Human Presence in the Absence of a Figure” phrase from the show, which brings to mind a quote by Jim Jarmusch: “Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.”
GLASS: Do you have any upcoming exhibitions where we might see your work?
Philippa: “Lost and Found”, a solo show at the Musée-Atelier du Verre in Sars-Poteries, France, has only just finished. It was an exhibition of all the work I made during my residency last fall and I was very fortunate that the museum produced a beautiful catalog documenting the residency and to accompany the show. The museum now holds several pieces from the exhibition you can visit any time.
“Remarkable Glass” at the Contemporary Applied Arts Gallery continues through July. I also have a few more exhibition possibilities in the pipeline, but it’s too early to confirm when and where yet. I’ll keep you posted!