Sara Jayne Harris is a visual artist living and working in the UK. She has a special interest in figurative representations and investigates themes concerning identity, temporality, pluralism and rituals through her multi media practice. Alongside her figurative sculptural works her practice seeks to animate the inanimate and to conjure a state of presence.
The Mammets are caricatures; invented emanations with their provenance partly built from factual evidence and retold human stories. Whilst each figure has an uncertain heritage and timelessness, the Romany reference is drawn from familial myths. Made from repurposed family clothing, materials become fragments of memory and animated portals to the past. The work seeks to elevate the status of their existence whilst normality is poignantly observed, transporting audiences towards their remembered worlds.
Cumulative, familial relationships are interwoven through layered narratives, hewn from fragments of memory made physical. The fragile surfaces create an ephemeral materiality; in the drying process, the clay shrinks creating fissures and wrinkles, a suggestion of the temporality of human life. The Mammets’ small scale is purposeful, heightening the sense of the uncanny and of difference. The use of the poetic is intentionally provocative used to question and reflect upon the truth of our memories.
Humanity and temporality are key themes explored within my visual arts practice and it is this interest in the human which drives the desire to connect and communicate ideas with others. The two aspects of my practice, art and education, are inextricably linked and important to me.
Inspiration for the works evolve from a multitude of sources, especially the quotidian, the everyday we all encounter. The practice is not contained to one material or technique. Freedom is sought through artistic discourse and play.
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