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Williams: Prosaic Melissa Chiu |
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 Justene Williams, Liquid |
Oscillating between vague description and a disrupted conversation, these strange staccato utterances resemble the effects of interrupted static. In spite of its casual format, Justene Williams' statement reflects on a number of central themes in her work. Williams brings together seemingly unrelated remarks in an attempt to explore notions of the prosaic. In particular, her photographs and installations play on but eschew the depiction of urban objects and locations as dull and monotonous, transforming the banal into a desirable commodity. She does this in two ways. Firstly, she portrays trite everyday objects, but subjects them to aesthetic mishaps. Secondly, Williams draws upon marketing techniques to distance the work from conventional ideas of the banal. This is particularly apparent in the puzzling yet catchy titles of her work. Williams' photographs are taken spontaneously and surreptitiously with disposable cameras. Using relatively low-grade film and snapping without a flash or the stability of a tripod, Williams turns the camera into a recorder of mistakes. Thus, chance in the form of light burn-out, blurs and distortions form pictorial, even formal devices. As Williams reflects, "There is no such thing as a bad picture". This democratic approach to art is evident in the series Can't Live Without Plastic from 1996. This series consists of fourteen photographs presented in a continuous line to resemble sticky yet desirable lollies trapped within the visual distortions of glass jars. They are arranged according to a colour spectrum, ranging from reds, pinks and oranges to blues, greens and pearl iridescence. Each photograph lacks definition but possesses a resonance which visually captures glimpses of consumer desire; like a shopping spree at breakneck speed. With individual titles such as Strawberry Hart, Pineapple Chunk! and Dreamworld, these photographs also appropriate familiar marketing techniques in order to grab the viewer's attention. In It's For You! from 1996, Williams conjures up a different kind of desire. While the title is reminiscent of lyrics from a sentimental love song, the individual titles of works allude to the depersonalised communications of electronic networks and recorded messages: Come Again, Synapse, Electric Speech, Initiate. The contrast between the title of the series and the titles of individual works establish a tension between the emotional and the technical. The blue-green moulded forms and details from the interior of boats suggest a cloying enclosure, like a view from inside telephone cables. In the same way, Can't Live Without Plastic suggested the fleeting whims of consumption, Its For You chronicles the journey of a personal conversation traveling at high speeds through metaphorical telephone cables. Williams' engagement with the everyday is also evident in a series of four untitled photographs exhibited in 1993. In contrast to the sense of enclosure sustained by It's for You, these high gloss murky compositions, with red, purple and grey hues, resemble an expansive constellations of stars and distant planets. While they look like reportage photographs from a NASA satellite, they are really the magnified, scattered waste from a vacuum cleaner. Similarly, a untitled pair of photographs shown in 1997 at First Floor in Melbourne depicted a repetitive circular pattern characterised by blurs and pixilated forms with white jewel-like circumferences and deep green pools. These images capture an enchanting light, which belies the fact that the subject matter is a domestic scene of upturned wine bottles. An exploration of the prosaic through domestic vignettes is extended in Williams' installation Non Actual Something from 1995. Non Actual Something tenders a flattened, one directional view, ironically denying the expectation of spatial complexity inherent in installation art. Reminiscent of a set from an Elvis Presley beach romance film from the 1950s, the installation includes coconut palms, water, deck chair and a cocktail. The idyllic tropical tableau is constructed from recycled brown cardboard, drawing attention to material support structure of the fantasy. Liquid Smiles (1993) develops similar strategies for questioning the myths surrounding weddings. An arch of helium-filled, sickly romantic balloons was placed in the gallery entrance, while at the far end of the gallery Williams installed a photograph of a bride and groom. To emphasise anonymity the photograph was cropped to exclude the couple's heads and to accentuate the white purity of the bride's gown and groom's suit. The placement of the photograph on its side also contributes to a disarmingly surreal scene where the trite artifacts of matrimonial perfection and happiness betray the superficiality of this ceremony. It's A Tropical Loveland (1996) also utilises the technique of cropping and framing to demystify the subjective and sentimental immediacy invested in amateur photography. These photographs depict an Asian tourist equipped with a video camera at an Australian beach. Williams offers the viewer three different perspectives of the tourist recording their holiday for posterity, multiplying the tourist's point of view through multifarious frames. Williams' photographs and installations abstract the ordinary aspects of life, not for the purposes of concealing their source, but rather to add an alternative perspective. Her works are infused with an interest in excessive consumption which metamorphise prosaic materials into desirably consumable tableaux. Whether it is the sickly sweetness in Can't Live Without Plastic or the fantasy of a tropical getaway in Non Actual Something her work is couched in platitudes from customer services, or as she would say, "Thank you and please come again". Endnotes © The artist and |
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