Living Data
Evolving conversations 
University of Technology, Sydney Main Entrance Foyer, 3 Sept 2014 - 20 Nov 2014
In Ultimo Science Festival, Sydney3-12 Sept 2014
Tienne Simons
Work for exhibition: Marks in the landscape, part of an ongoing project.
Digital Image of Installation in Landscape. Cheesecloth, calcium carbonate, Bondcrete, acrylic.
[Image forthcomong]
Story:
I sit in front of the dense scrub and fill the page with the marks I see, enamoured with how much variety much can be contained in such a small area. After drawing the lines, shapes and density, I begin to wonder about the spaces between the flora, sometimes marked out as wallaby trails and sometimes just there for the eye to piece together. I make marks from stiffened painted cloth and lay these out in the landscape, highlighting spaces. The marks have since moved back into the studio, both as drawings and in various 3D incarnations.
Method:
My work is process based. I began visual arts as a ceramicist with a love of bush walking and rock climbing. For art making, I need a kinaesthetic experience; to feel the elements and move my body. Making objects and taking them outdoors to draw and photograph, sometimes digitally editing and then working and reworking derivative ideas in my studio. I often make my own materials using chemicals, the raw materials I became familiar with in ceramic glazes; stiffening cloth with Calcium Carbonate & making giant pastels to get the marks I prefer.
Acknowledgements:
This body of work began with a ceramic exhibition that responded to the landscape and global warming. I had the opportunity to develop these ideas further as part of my Honors year in Drawing at the National Art School. The process has since continued.
Pulications:
Publications that have resulted from my work are Ballard,B. Inside out: Walter Auer, Brooke Thompson, Gudrun Klix, Nahomi Yoshizawa, Szilvia Gyorgy, Tienne Simons and Maria Aguilera-Mendoza, Ceramic Art and Perception, Issue 83 (Mar-May 2011),
Literature:
Artists who inspire me include: Idris Murphy, Ildiko Kovaks, Mostyn Bradley More, Tony Tuckson, Elisabeth Cummings, Eva Hesse, Richard Tuttle and Elisabeth D'Arrigo. I imagined the bodylines removed from the canvas of the indigenous artist Emily Kame Kngwararreye, and moved back onto form. Ian Fairweather speaks for to me, when he reflects on the work of Tuckson and Kngwararreye saying, "...the act of painting was at once the meaning of the painting, and that this metaphysical insinuation had come through a painterly practice, not through theory".
Tienne Simons
Counsellor at Counselling Service,
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Bio:
Tienne Simons splits her time between working in the UTS Counselling Unit and in her studio. She has Bachelors degree in Ceramics and an honours year in drawing. She has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions
Further engage:
Contact Tienne Simons at tienne.simons@uts.edu.au.
Some work of her work can be seen at:
ww.dropbox.com/sh/jy7wjzduiecvx11/AABvcig_0rHzT13AWfc2xxnTa
