Juliet of the Spirits (2021) [Artwork Withdrawn]
Steel, plywood, neon, led, solar panels, aluminium, perspex, dichroic film, mirror, quartz, leather, glass and moss
Juliet of the Spirits, takes its title from the 1965 Fellini film and is informed by the narrative of a middle-aged woman’s communion with mysticism, spirits and visions. The installation also refers to unseen forces, cosmic apparition, enlivened matter and magic. The particular site of the unassuming rest house and its use as a place of respite also informs this work, where notions of exit and dream spaces are mixed with the banal and every day.
About the Artist
Josee Vesely-Manning lives on Gadigal Wangal Country in Sydney’s Inner West. She has an MFA from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Josee’s performance background and growing up within a travelling circus family inform her art practice: as well as world making, environmental degradation and material obsolescence within an invented universe of magic and anarchy. She has worked for several years predominantly in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia and has delivered projects and exhibitions for a diverse range of galleries, festivals and funding bodies including The Australia Council, Arts Victoria, The City of Port Philip Cultural Development Fund, The City of Melbourne, Arts House/ The Meat Market, Underbelly Arts Festival and LAB residency at Carriageworks, Federation Square and Melbourne Design Week.
@joseeveselymanning www.joseeveselymanning.com
Transcription
My name is Josee Vesley-Manning and this is Juliet of the spirits.
The title of this installation is borrowed from the 1965 Fellini Film and perhaps has been informed by some of these narratives. A woman's middle aged crisis, Absurdist Surrealist tangents and a desire to commune with mystic forces. But probably what's also relevant is the unique architectural space where this installation is placed, a fairly rudimentary and utilitarian Rest House that, through its own geometric shape and this work, is transformed into some kind of temple. What temple it may be is vague, but it is certainly in collaboration with the sun, which, through reflection and light, changes throughout the day.
In fact, the configuration of how the light is falling right now may be your own unique communion and your fleeting Oracle. Spells, magic are broader connections to the cosmic energies, spirits, matter and non human or more than human, forces and forms and may be suggested to. Enjoy.