Jet Marsh-Cashman
Waverley College
MISSED CALLS
Collection of Work
Acrylic paint on canvas, wall phones, acrylic mirror
Missed calls tend to be received as urgent messages needing a response. However, due to your unavailability, the caller isn’t given the satisfaction of a response. Both sides are affected, experiencing a range of emotions such as guilt, despair, anger, humour and happiness. My intent with the audio message on each telephone was to create a common and relatable scenario, giving the audience the chance to interact and interpret, attaching their own understanding to each aspect of life expressed in the corresponding canvas. This experience is made more interactive as the audience views their reaction to each missed call.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: George Condo, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse.
Marker's Commentary
The initial impression of this work is the vibrant and colourful set of 4 paintings presented as a grid alongside a range of different style, old fashioned phones. The discordant vibrant colours and distorted and exaggerated compositions are resonant of a mash up of pop art and cubism and are a visual feast for the eyes. As an audience we try to make sense of the abstracted forms that are technically well rendered in acrylic paint with dominant patterns and strong dark outlines.. Once we have had our fill of the dynamic qualities of the paintings we connect with the phones around the work and using QR technology we are invited into the private world of phone messages and the emotional connection between the frustrated person leaving the message and the impact messages can have on the person receiving them. The sharing of these intimate moments with the audience draws us to engage with this work on an emotional and voyeuristic level. This work is highly sophisticated in the layered and nuanced ways it portrays lived experiences, transforming and transcending the mundane and everyday.