DISCOBALLBREAKER

At Art13 a few weeks ago, as I made my way through the orange-scented main hall (courtesy of a Roelof Louw installation), and poked around various projects and performances, and one faux-artist squat from Lazarides, I came across the work of Jonny Briggs at FaMa Gallery. 

Jonny Briggs is a young British artist who won the 2011 New Sensations Prize from The Saatchi Gallery for work that is deeply personal, and occasionally uncomfortable. At Art13, the work I gravitated towards was called Schisms. Presented as a group of photographs, Schisms was made up of a series of framed photographs, each sliced clean across to create new, fractured images of disembodied heads and displaced figures. The technique in use was simple, almost naively so, but the end results were both sad and beautiful. 

Most of Briggs’ work can be described in that way. Using old family photographs and various ephemera, Briggs creates new images, sculptures and assemblages that investigate his adolescence, and his claustrophobic relationships with his family. 

Briggs is now preparing for a solo show at the Simon Oldfield Gallery. The new works will feature collaborations with scientists, and explorations of animatronics, photography, sculpture, drawing, installation, tapestry, and film. Ahead of the solo show in April, Briggs was kind enough to chat to me over email. Here he talks about the Schisms series, as well as a few other recent works. 

Can you tell me about the ‘Schisms’ series?

I have four older sisters, and when I was younger there were things that they could do that I couldn’t do. Each morning my Mum would bring down a large box of brightly coloured hairclips and my sisters and I would rush in to choose them, yet I didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to wear them. I wanted to wear the same clothes, play with the same toys and go to Brownies. Even when we went out in public, I wanted to use the same toilets. I desperately wanted to be part of the social group, yet didn’t understand the complexities of adult life, and the sacrifices involved in following them.

One of my sisters is just a year older than me, and because of this we went through school together, sharing similar experiences, sitting next to each other in a double push chair, having the same teachers and even watching the same television programmes. Perhaps because of this she seemed almost like a twin to me, like another half of me. And as she was a year older, she was a mentor for me, a role model, and someone I aspired to be like.

Yet through trying to be like her and my other sisters, I displaced myself as an individual. This is what this series references, where my family photographs have been cut through and moved along so that my sister’s head is moved on to my body – yet in doing so moving my head so that it is suspended in space. When presented together the pieces remind me of a shattered mirror, fragmented and displaced.

 Who is the central figure in the 'Natural Inside’, 'Smiling Inside’, and 'Empathetic vs. Mimic’ pieces?

The figure in 'Natural Inside’ is myself, painted in luminous pink and wearing an up-scaled latex mask of my Father’s head. 

The characters in works like this often feel like both me and my parents at the same time – yet neither one nor the other. They further feel like somewhere between my parents and I now, and my parents and I then. So not quite self or other, not quite now or then. Yet I identify with all of them – they feel like aspects of me, and when I question the reasons why I make them the way I do, they reveal a lot about myself.

The figure in 'Smiling Inside’ is me wrapped in a bed sheet, sat upon a bare mattress and wearing an up-scaled wooden mask of my Father’s head. The shape of the hole inside is of my own head smiling, which pushes my face in to a smile when it closes. Because neither the eyes nor the sides of the mouth are seen, the expression is transformed into something more ambiguous. The piece is wide-angle, making what’s closest to the lens appear much larger than what’s further away, encouraging the figure to appear like a cocoon, or chrysalis, departing it from the human. At the same time the figure reminds me of a swaddled baby, or naughty child facing the corner.

'The Empathetic vs. The Mimic’ involves myself and my partner at the time performing as my Father with half of the mask each, blurring the distinction between them, him and I and my Father and I. The items were collected in pairs from my parent’s house, and arranged as if a mirror image as an installation before being photographed. One side was made intuitively, with how things felt right, often spontaneously falling in to place. The other side was made through thought – in a methodical attempt to mimic the other side. So I see this piece as referencing my Father and I’s relationship – how we’re the same – flesh and blood, yet we think in such different ways – are such different people. My Father is more on the thinking, practical side whereas I feel more on the feeling, intuitive side – and I see this piece as a marriage of the two.

I came across your work at Art13 - do you think about how your work is read in a commercial art fair environment? 

All these years I’ve been making the work in my own little bubble, and when the work is displayed is the moment this bubble pops. The outside world can take getting used to. Each person’s perspective is different, and I find this valuable in allowing me to stare back at the bubble from a new place. The perspectives of galleries, curators, theoreticians, collectors and other artists are all different, and I welcome them all.

The majority of collectors I have met are ones that connect with the ideas and themes in the work, often liking to share their stance on it, which I love. 

If you’d like to check out more of Jonny Briggs’ work, head to his artist talk at Manchester Art Gallery on March 23, as part of the Siblings Conference based on the psychoanalytic theories of Juliet Mitchell. Reserve your place here. 

Image credits: 
'Schisms 5’
'Schisms 4’
'Schisms 3’
'Schisms 2’
'Natural Inside’
'Smiling Inside’
'The Empathetic vs. The Mimic’
All images courtesy of the artist