As we explored in our previous issue, the start of a new year has been seemingly ingrained into our modern psyche as a pivotal moment of change. Yet, not all that long ago, the 1st of January meant nothing to us humans; it was just another hot summer or, depending upon where you lived, cold winter day. For a year as we know it today in the Western world, with its twelve months, three hundred and sixty-five days and so forth, only came into being in 1582 with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, which in itself was a revamped version of the Julian calendar introduced by the Romans. This is not to say however, that those who lived before the age of such sophisticated calendars did not try to keep track of their time. Since time immemorial we humans have come up with numerous constructions and contraptions, from Stonehenge and Newgrange to Mesopotamian Sand Dials and Brittonic Lunar Pits, to instil meaning into our time here on earth (many of our ancestors relied upon astronomical events such as that of the winter solstice to tell the time for instance). Obviously, time itself existed before we homo sapiens were around; the sun rose and fell, the dinosaurs came and went; but timekeeping has been a strictly human activity. To all the other creatures here on the planet, such a practice may seem, well, absurd.
‘this process was simply not working for me anymore and I just could not quite figure out why’
On top of timekeeping, a lot about our human experience seems rather bizarre if you think about it. Yet that’s exactly what Phee Jefferies current works are all about – highlighting our weirdness. As Phee and I hilariously discuss, everything, from our consumer goods to our complex languages, seem completely absurd if you take the time to contemplate them. (In a neuropsychological process known as ‘semantic satiation’, if we repeat a word multiple times our brains soon begin to interpret it as just a strange sounding noise. Try saying the word ‘leaf ’ more than a few times for instance and see for yourself how illogical our languages seem when stripped of their meaning.). Though, it is fair to say that if we spend too long pondering over our existence then the very idea of it can become rather ominous. After all, the great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was thought by some to have been driven to madness because he thought too much.
‘There was a bit of conflict at Secondary school when I was deciding what to do at Uni’
Of course, the idea that Nietzsche went insane because he dove too far down some sort of philosophical rabbit hole is nonsense, even absurd one might say. Though, whilst the act of thinking about life may not kill you, to too deeply contemplate our existence can make the very concept of it quite daunting. Phee, however, has decided to tackle the anxieties we often face when confronted with such thoughts by endeavouring, throughout her current projects, to celebrate our presence here on this blue marble, via a plethora of quirky sculptures and installations. Indeed, as we will uncover throughout this opening article, Phee looks to add a positive twist when it comes to considering the notion of our existence - by exposing and espousing the very absurdity of it.
However, whilst the theme this month is based upon the illogical, we commence our story by being logical– well, chronological that is – by starting at the very beginning of Phee’s artistic journey. ‘I have had a passion for art my entire life’ Phee tells me. ‘When I was younger, if my mother needed to calm me down, or stop me from making a fuss then she would just give me something artsy to do and I would just sit there quietly for hours until I was told to stop... at primary school I would get so excited when they would get the craft things out and everyone would have moved on to the next activity but I would still be there playing with the paper and the glitter’ she adds.
‘There was a bit of conflict at secondary school when I was deciding what to do at uni’ Phee explains. ‘Everyone was like “well art isn’t going to get you anywhere. If you are going to do something artsy, then make sure to do like creative advertising or interior design”. But I decided that I was not guaranteed a job whatever degree I did, so I thought that I would just do a degree that I cared about and know that I would enjoy’.
As much as Phee enjoyed the likes of drawing and sketching however, her interests soon began to change when she went to university. ‘When I started my first year I had this idea that there were so many other people who did drawing and sketching who were so much better than me, so I was not sure what new things I could bring to those mediums... this led me down a path to try new things, which bodes quite well with who I am, as I just love having loads of stuff ’. Of course, when Phee refers to ‘stuff ’ here, I can see that what she means is artsy stuff – the wall behind her is a collage of artworks, making it seem as if the room itself is an installation.
‘I was terrified... but now it’s just something that excites me’
‘After I stopped drawing, I became unsure about what to do and became quite disillusioned with my studies... from A-Level I was used to having to pick a theme and using that as a base to work from, but this process was simply not working for me anymore and I just could not quite figure out why. But then one day we had this excellent artist come in to give a talk in one of our lectures and afterwards I decided to speak to him about the problems I was having. He seemed rather baffled and said “why are you trying to fit into a concept and do specific things? Just do whatever comes into your head” and so I started doing just that. I started using clothes and fabrics and just sticking these things together to create small artistic pieces.’
Indeed, it is not easy to break away from our academic confides. After all, the school system requires pupils, regardless of the subject, to accurately replicate well- known formulas, artworks and arguments in order to properly grade them. Of course, this is a great way in which to organise society, since much like timekeeping, grades allow us to seemingly keep track of our individual levels of intelligence. Yet such a system is arguably overtly mathematical and does not consider that in the Arts and Humanities the answers are never conclusive; that 2+2 need not necessarily equal 4. As demonstrated by Phee and countless others, such rigidity can, moreover, hinder the emergence of new ideas (On a personal note, throughout school the teachers consistently struggled to grade my thought processes. Even in university I found it difficult to get my ideas out there without breaking the rigid way I was required to structure my arguments – another reason why this magazine was born).
Once Phee began to break with her more traditional methods of working, Phee decided to implement a more improvised process, one where she would firstly collect various pieces before coming up with the ideas for the artworks later on. This search for materials, however, would lead her to discover something that would ultimately result in the creation of the sculptures and installations you can see here. ‘While I was looking for new materials to use, I was told that latex was good for sticking things and that this stuff was used for prosthetics and special effects... I thought it was really cool’. From there Phee was hooked and it was not long before she began to learn how to create her own latex sculptures.
‘I largely figured it out on my own during the first year of lockdown, using materials and pieces of information from the university’ Phee informs me. ‘As for creating a typical piece, I will tend to lube myself up with Vaseline, so that the latex does not stick, and then begin to paint my arm with about ten layers of latex [yes there is such a thing as latex paint!]... I’ll then use a hairdryer to dry the paint and then brush my whole arm with talcum powder so that I am able to peel it all off without it tearing’. Phee is then left with a cast of a rather squidgy, lifelike, arm, which she then stuffs with beanbags if she needs tomake it firmer, as she did with her folded set of arms for instance.
Creating such sculptures however, also had a simultaneous effect, for the bigger Phee built, the more confident she became when it came to playing with the area surrounding her works. ‘I was terrified of using too much space but now it is just something that excites me. I love utilising the room and just constantly want to curate bigger and more immersive installations’. As you can see here for instance, Phee not only creates the likes of latex sculptures but also looks to curate the atmosphere that she places them in. Take a look at her use of lighting, colour and space for example. Not only are the sculptures exaggerated by the intensity of her lighting, but by their shadows upon the whitewashed walls within Phee’s minimalist styled rooms. Yet whilst Phee now had the materials and spaces to work with, in accordance with her new way of working, she now needed a primary theme to accompany them.
I began to read a lot about philosophy and became interested in humanity’s inherent search for meaning...
‘I presented my first artwork, that had been created using my new process, to my lecturer and I was like “I don’t know what it is, I have got no direction but there you are, look I have made something” ... the first bit of feedback that I received was that I seemed to have “a good grasp on the absurd” and I just thought “yeah that makes a lot of sense” so I really just took that idea and just ran with it. I began to read a lot about philosophy and became interested in humanity’s inherent search for meaning... after a while I came to the conclusion that there was not one, which made me feel pretty anxious but then I read the works of the philosopher, Albert Camus, who said that you could either accept such meaningless or find your own purpose’. From that Phee seemingly had a choice: nihilistically accept that there was no meaning or try and search for one. Yet she decided upon a middle ground: Phee would espouse the absurdity of humanity’s existence and our very desire to unearth meaning from it.
We buy stools, tables and wine glasses for practical reasons, such as to rest, to eat or to drink from, but we also acquire such objects to add meaning to our lives. In this sense, people often spend a great deal of time and effort collecting such consumer goods in the search for fulfilment, something which arguably makes for a rather competitive world. Yet, by applying latex limbs to these items, Phee is able to hilariously personify them, making them appear to be angry or sad without the need for the likes of a human face or background story. Indeed, by exposing the very absurdity of our various quests for meaning, such as by creating a stool with human arms for legs and human hands for feet, Phee helps to make light of our human experience, as she once wrote:
‘I like to question our ideas of reality through hyper- realistic installations exploring absurdist takes on various aspects of human life, including body language, everyday activities and the things that can be found in our homes. By challenging expectations, I encourage the viewer to open their mind and embrace the weird and wonderful aspects of the human experience, and hope that next time they come face to face with this situation they will view it differently and see the absurdity in it, and that it will make them smile’.
‘I have also been experimenting with words and language, since, similar to the human body, it is something everyone is familiar with’ Phee tells me. ‘As a dyslexic person it is nice for me to look at words in a different way, as opposed to them just being words, if that makes sense’. Phee then holds up a white book, its title simply stating the word ‘BOOK’, before then flicking through its pages. Within each page there are sentences which, in a similar vein to the title, state the words ‘this is a book’. Yet in a manner more akin to art than literature, Phee has organised these sentences into various patterns and symbols. ‘I like to call this a novel, but a nonsense novel’ Phee amusingly says. Of course, a book publisher may find such a novel absurd, yet whilst there may be a total lack of a coherent structure, there is still no denying that this object, in terms of its physicality at least, is a book.
Whilst Phee is being humorous here however, she is also touching upon a much deeper issue. For what Phee is helping to highlight is that whilst words may be our primary source of communication, they are not our only ones, or indeed our most effective ones. As we have explored throughout Art Etcetera, such as via the works of neurodivergent artist Tom Coomber in Issue 16, ‘Coasts’, many find our more visual means of communication to be that much more useful than our verbal and literal forms.
‘As a dyslexic person it is nice for me to look at words in a different way’
Regardless of such points however, many may still think that it is preposterous to reconstruct a book in such a way, yet all of Phee’s works, in one way or another, are based upon the notion of deconstruction - whether this is taking apart our consumer items and putting them back together with a bunch of limbs or replacing the hooks on our walls with pairs of hands. As well as her sculptures however, Phee is also now looking to deconstruct the idea of what we consider to be an installation by changing up the environments in which her artworks are presented. ‘I am hoping to do more exhibitions in alternative spaces, such as in the forest, in a car park or in a living room’ she tells me.
Of course, there’s no denying that Phee’s pieces and ideas may be considered by some to be rather bizarre, just as a few of her old teachers may have regarded her improvised creative process to be illogical. Yet, as Phee argues through her works; such absurdity not only makes life more exciting but perhaps defines our very existence - a logical reason surely, for us all to embrace and enjoy our limited time here on earth.
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