Jeannie Driver

Jeannie Driver is a contemporary visual artist, living and working in Portsmouth. Driver’s post minimalist works utilise materials imbued with processes and metaphorical references to present works as drawing, installation, sculpture, and film. Her pallet is dominated by paper, specifically waste-paper documents. Both out of a sense of responsibility to materials and with an interest in their symbolic value and embedded histories. Process is a core element in her practice and involves acts of destruction, repetition, re-processing and re-enactment as a mode of encounter that gives new form whilst referencing the cyclical nature of materiality. Driver’s work relates to perception, questioning viewing, and with thoughts of how the viewer experiences the work, in relation to the body. There is always a question of experience for Driver, and how the audience moves around and experiences the work. Driver’s urge towards accessibility and engagement has influenced her approach throughout her practice, in both the public realm and in the gallery.

Born in London, Driver studied Fine Art at the University of Portsmouth, obtaining a 1st Class BA Hons Degree, and a distinction MA by Project in 2000. On graduation Driver focused on public art and socially engaged practice and shifted to a studio based practice in 2007. Her studio is currently based at Art Space, Portsmouth.

Jeannie Driver’s Art Through Glass window ‘Manifestations of a Cube #7’ has just opened. Click here for more.

An Interview with Jeannie Driver at Quay Arts May 2021

GN: We have had many conversations since I invited you to make new work in relation to the Dazzle phenom, can you tell us your approach?

My main interest was in the conceptual approach to the Dazzle ships; focusing on Norman `Wilkisons quote: “The sole idea of this particular form of painting was protection against submarine attack.” Initial experiments in the studio where with scale, informed by early camouflage designs that where not effective in masking the form of a ship from a distance to Norman Wilkinsons highly researched and much larger and bolder Dazzle designs. These did disguise the contours of the ship and hence challenge the viewers perception in relation to distance, speed and direction. I was intrigued that the Dazzle designs were in their materiality, a facade; a surface, a thin veneer of paint with the power to present ambiguity and uncertainty to the viewer. The relationship between the viewer and the viewed and the dynamic space in between, became a central concern in developing the work. This combined with applying the reverse concept of making the gallery wall appear less flat, and how to create visual ambiguity in a corner has led to the site specific installation The Space Between.

GN: Thinking about our research day, and looking at the unique dazzle designs, which ones did you find most alluring?

Aesthetically, I was particularly drawn to designs that incorporate a three dimensional illusion. The USS Nebraska being the best example of this. I felt more in tune with its composition and sense of balance. 

My main experience of researching the Dazzle designs was through old black and white photographs, where the varied but subdued colour palettes is not visible. This aligns with my monochromatic practice and love of black, as a light absorbing colour.

GN: You seem to focus as much on the viewer as on the dazzle designs,

My process of making work always takes into consideration the role of the viewer and their spacial relationship with the work. I find it interesting that in this case the original intended viewer of the Dazzle ships would been perceived as the enemy. The viewing experience was reinforced during a visit to The Merseyside Maritime Museum, where I had the opportunity to peer through the large and imposing periscopes that had once been sited on the submarines. This focused my attention on the individual experience of seeing a circular framed focused view, where your peripheral vision is disconnected. This reinforced the how intense the watching experience of the Dazzle ships would have been and is an element I’ve aimed On the Circumference.

GN: You have created two main installations for Dazzle & Disrupt, can you first say something about your installation On The Circumference?

This work is very much informed by thoughts of the individual viewing experience, the framed view and the intensity of looking. In the early stages, I spent many days in my studio peering through different scale holes, at the paper strips suspended at various positions to create a visual disturbance. This process extended to filming just prior to my studio being closed down due to the first Covid lockdown. I used the footage in the same way as using physical material, employing techniques of drawing, cutting and collage but through digital processing.

This work is located in a more intimate space, with a small entrance. It was a perfect site to change the atmosphere in the gallery, to create an installation with material, light, film and sound. The work presents two main areas for the act of looking. The film on the right, is constructed from episodes of seeing that fade away, challenging the viewer to refocus their attention through the circle to the suspended paper strips that present opportunity for visual interference. The sound developed in collaboration artist Arturo Casciaro is integral to the installation, adding an intensity to the experience. The installation is intended to be visited by one viewer at a time, adding weight to the act of seeing.

GN: You describe The Space Between in the main gallery as a walk in spacial drawing, can you tell us more?

JD As a site specific work, that embodies concerns I’ve already mentioned it also unites my practice and approach of Lifting the Drawing off the Page, which is my method of using systems and rules to create drawings on paper that are then reinterpreted as installations. In essence every drawing on paper is a proposition to transverse the 2D to 3D to become an installed spacial drawing. This approach utilises my drawing palette of ‘independent lines’ suspended from a framework of pins emerging directly from the gallery wall. I think of space as material. This has equal weight, with anything that might ‘fill’ space and so the space between elements are as important as the shapes themselves. Light and shadow are also important material in this work, extending the drawing onto the floors and up the walls and to give a sense of being ‘within’.

GN: You mentioned your drawing palette, your interest in materials and surface, can you say some more about that?

I often reuse material from one installation to another. For example, touch of the original paper for this work came from Lines of Passage and When Contents Become Form. In these works the paper originated as A4 documents that I shredded into strips using a domestic paper shredder, and suspended to reveal snippets of data. In my current approach, under the over arching title of Lifting The Drawing off the Page, these paper strips have each been coated in charcoal, to make what I call Independent lines. Their first appearance’s in this guise came in the form of Cyclical Flow and Cyclical Drift.

For this work I’ve added paper from Paper Column, and employed traditional drawings materials of charcoal, and graphite to the mix. Charcoal, is of course a substance loaded with metaphor, but in the studio I’m interested in changing a powder to a solid to create a light absorbing black black.

GN: From knowing your work over several years, it appears that the audience always has a role in your installations, can you say something about that?

JD: The relationship between artwork and audience is part of the same equation. I consider the installations as a proposition, where the viewer is provoked into looking more, as the foreground, and mid ground interact merge into the background. Where they can shifts and alters their position, to find ‘sweet spots’, or sight-lines. This invitation to navigate the work, causes, the independent lines to react, and move in the breeze further activating the artwork.

GN: Your work made for ‘Dazzle & Disrupt’ is very much made to fit the gallery space, Considering this, what are the most challenging factors in the making of your work?

JD: Although the work can be installed by anyone with the drawing kit and instructions, I really enjoy installing work, from drawing up the grid, to drilling the holes, for me, it’s part of the performance, and relates to my body. Although I work to a drawing plan, there are always surprises and adjustments to be made. For this work, scale is relevant and with any installation work, the work is only realised in the actual space where it becomes something else, irrelevant of all the studio experiments.