THE WORK OF ANGELA GROSSMANN AND DREW SHAFFER

An essay by Sunshine Frère

Collect, sculpt, sand, paint, sew, disseminate - this is where the likes of Angela Grossmann and Drew Shaffer can be found. Having met in a vintage shop, they bonded over their common obsession with old ephemera and imagery. It was at that time that a game of connections and associations began. Anything and everything became part of the rules of play. Fashion, writing, food, philosophy, photography, gossip, poetry and art - no topic taboo, no stone left unturned. For over a decade now, Grossmann and Shaffer's exchanges have endured and flourished.

Jiggery Pokery is an exhibition of new work by both artists. An expression with two meanings, jiggery pokery can be used to describe objects that have been cobbled together using bits and bobs, but it can also mean to be up to some type of trickery. A truly apt title for Shaffer and Grossmann who, by using whatever they've got on hand to get the job done, transform objects and images into fantastical apparitions. This exhibition is a collaboration of sorts, but most importantly, it is a new way for these two artists to play their game.

THE THINGS YOU THINK ARE PRECIOUS, I CAN’T UNDERSTAND, 2015, Drew Shaffer, 18 x 11 x 14” mixed media

Parameters for the show were drafted early on: Shaffer and Grossmann would make pieces separately, and neither would see the other's work until just prior to gallery installation. Potentially problematic, yes. However, both artists had confidence in the output of each other’s respective practices. Collaboratively, they installed both sets of work in the gallery. These imposed parameters played a part in Grossmann and Shaffer producing a body of work that is comprehensively resolved, yet exploding with probability.

BALLOON, 2015, Angela Grossmann, mixed media collage, 16 x 20 inches, (detail) (left)

Grossmann works two dimensionally, producing complex figurative collages using found photographs, paint, fabric and paper. Shaffer works with found objects, creating surreal sculptures that often seem to possess human qualities. Together, their work hovers in an aether composed of memory, self-projection and emotion.

My work uses likenesses of people who are long gone. So, they've got that echo of being familiar, but at the same time not existing anymore. I think I like to play between that which is still current and that which is gone, but also what remains that we have a connection to.  What is the humanity that crosses over from then to now? It's all about that bridge. - Angela Grossmann

Striped Shorts, 2015, Angela Grossmann, mixed media collage, 20 x 16”

Angela Grossmann's work is embedded within the active process of projection. She is cognitive of the fact that when someone looks at a figurative photographic image, they will always project personal histories and memories onto it. Susan Sontag defines “melancholy objects” as things that are born of distance, or separation from reality.i Preliminary analysis of Grossmann's work reveals that the artist often emphasizes such a separation. Her subjects are of another era, at least four or five decades ago, their vintage hairstyles and clothing transport the viewer back in time. Grossmann also works predominantly with copied black & white photographs - melancholy naturally seeps out of this medium.

Further investigation of the work reveals the critical manner in which the artist's subjects have been torn apart and reconfigured. Grossmann's signature compositional style, which includes multiple perspectives, concurrently overlapping, and intentionally visible traces of process, adds layers of unpredictability and anxiety into the work. Her figures are mutant, each one a hybrid of males, females and inanimate objects. Limbs, appendages and a range of perspectives are expertly corralled together creating a powerfully loaded visualization. Her work highlights movement, fragmentation and ambiguity. Unapologetically extant, these poised characters command attention.

David, 2015, Angela Grossmann, mixed media collage, 16 x 20”

French theorist Roland Barthes observed, “What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.”ii Thirty years after this observation, viral immediacy and ubiquity of images means that society lives through events collectively - regardless of being present in the single instant of the image taking. Photographic variations of an instant are virtually posted by multiple participants, simultaneously as they unfold. Numerous others immediately have access to the image, sharing it, copying it, or becoming anxious over the fact that they missed the event in the instant it was shared. Today, the isolated-but-simultaneously-shared-experience prevails with maximum intensity and hyper-frequency.  

The energy of this frenzied, insatiable image consumption exists in Grossmann's work. Simultaneity of instances is both implied and compositionally produced. In this case, the artist acts as a shaman of time: she wrestles with a flurry of fragmented faces, body parts and poses, while expertly channeling a plurality of human presences into a series of unique, contemporary deities. Her figures represent collective modulations of the individual. Each one is magnetic, an all-seeing entity with an amaranthine gaze - always becoming, always unfolding. Thus, through constant re-directing of focus, Grossmann heightens and prolongs the viewing experience.  

Puppet, 2015, Angela Grossmann, mixed media collage, 16 x 20”

Brusque, torn paper and tattered fabric remnants stand in high contrast to precise, photocopied body parts and pristine, painted surfaces. Grossmann’s collage work has an elastic quality to it. Visual comparisons between monochrome and colour, or past and present, push and pull the viewer. Sometimes, like a boulder from a catapult, a figure strikes out at the viewer’s conscience with a deep intensity. At other times the artist’s compositions undulate between posed stillness and movement, gently stirring up thoughts and emotions.  

Highly theatrical, Grossmann's work reveals the complex interplay between multiple types of performance: the circus, playing house and dress-up, pin-ups, puppets and dolls. Each concept comes with a set of pre-determined tropes: seduction, innocence, comedy, pathos, vulnerability, control, curiosity, gender-play and identity.  

Grossmann methodically sustains viewer perception in a world where disruption is the social norm. This collage series is powerful. But yet, each figure employs a type of resistance to 'being seen'.  In fact, many types of resistance lie within her figures, they defy one-dimensionality. Refusing to be stereotyped, they object to being fully male or female, they deny standing still, and they will most definitely not accept being a part of a singular narrative.

I'VE DONE EVERYTHING I CAN TO MAKE YOU COMFORTABLE, 2015, Drew Shaffer, 6 x 17 x 6”, mixed media

I am interested in how we choose to define ourselves by what we own. The general view of the object, when desired, is that it is hip. My general view is that it becomes more interesting when it’s not hip anymore, when it’s discarded. It's not trying to prove itself anymore... I often turn the use of a functional object into more of a narrative, or metaphor. It's a different kind of practicality. - Drew Shaffer

In his work, Drew Shaffer explores the complexity of language and meaning across aesthetic and conceptual realms. The titles of his sculptures incorporate puns and double entendres, and are frequently infused with poetic, lyrical and pop-cultural references. It is difficult to know which came first, the sculpture, or the title. Visually, the work reinforces the title's implied meanings, encouraging metaphors in the viewer’s mind. Shaffer's sculptures are accessible and open.

The work featured in Jiggery Pokery explores inter-human exchanges: empathy, love, detachment, mis-understanding and personal struggle. Each work deals with a particular feeling or cognitive sensitivity.  It is inevitable that humour and emotion are folded into the reading of the work. Thus, through the act of projection, the sculptures turn into vulnerable and sensitive entities.

Exhibition Installation View, 2015

Each work has a special aesthetic charm all of its own. Shaffer converts vintage and found objects into something 'other', something seemingly human. Works are imbued with elements of memory, desire and ridicule. Shaffer uses three main strategies to do this: through the word-play of his titles, through shifts in scale, and through the skewing an object’s function. These are works that exaggerate scale, and embrace qualities of absurdity and whimsy, works that transform an object’s function, and activate the imagination, creating dynamic new narratives and meaning. Shaffer is engaged with the ontology of kitsch.iii Each sculpture challenges both its origins and its current existence.

In the work entitled I Hate What You're Doing To Me, the viewer is invited to interact with the sculpture. They become the person who is doing the one thing that the sculpture hates having done to it. In the work I Can't Protect You From Yourself, the work is visibly self-destructing. The title serves as an empty statement, one that speaks truth, but also, gesturally falls flat. All of the works in Jiggery Pokery are symbolic representations of emotional turmoil. As Shaffer states, “They are ridiculous, but then again, so is life! We all put ourselves in these absurd circumstances”.  

I HATE WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO ME, 2015, Drew Shaffer, 30 x 39 x 10”, mixed media

Like Grossmann, Shaffer is invested in and aware of the melancholy that can be attributed to objects; however, his strategy in playing with this concept is different. Preliminary analysis of his work demonstrates that he attempts the opposite of Grossmann; he works to eclipse the symbolism originally attributed to his objects, as opposed to emphasizing it. The familiar becomes uncanny, as the purpose of the object is transposed into an alternative narrative. Push-pins become Pearl Necklaces, shingles and finial transform into faces, and speakers grow ears. Many layers of perception can be teased out of this work; Shaffer intentionally creates work that revels in bemusement. He synthesizes emotions with senses and the power of the past with the force of the new.  All elements crystallize and coerce viewers to scrimmage with reality, imagination and remembrance.

Experiencing Angela Grossmann and Drew Shaffer's works is much akin to trying to conceive of the present tense in the actual present. Change is the only constant; it is impossible to simultaneously experience, define and understand. With every nanosecond crashing into the next, the viewer is eternally adjusting how to sense and think through the jiggery pokery. This exhibition envelops the viewer entirely. It is a game between two artists; it is always in motion. Together, Shaffer and Grossmann welcome you into a timeless prototopia. Almost a place ... definitely a feeling.

Angela Grossmann & Drew Schaffer

___________________________________________________________________

iSusan Sontag, On Photography (USA, Picador, 1977) 49.

iiRoland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York, Hill and Wang, 1982) 4.

iiiCeleste Olalquiaga, The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of Kitsch Experience (New York, Pantheon, 1998)