SOME ROSES AND THEIR PHANTOMS | 30 APRIL - 4 MAY
PRIVATE VIEW and MEET THE ARTIST'S EVENT | 30 APRIL 6 - 9pm
VENUE | Bermondsey Project Space - London
Camilla Bliss diffuses the boundaries between life and death giving an ulterior perspective that death does not need to follow the dark garments of tradition, or the light veil of the living, but in fact these subjects are very much intertwined and open to the viewers interpretation. In this show her works reflect celestial or heavenly phantom creatures.
London based mixed-media artist Camilla blends the digital and the handmade through her practice, utilising a wide range of materials such as ceramics, metalwork, glass, wood, textiles and 3D printing. Crystallising her ideas through digital manipulation, the artist places an importance, however, on handmade processes and qualities. Bliss’ work is influenced by historical craftsmanship, motifs and mythologies which she uses as a framework to communicate ideas about the modern world. Using universally recognisable symbols, Bliss allows the viewer to bring personal narratives to her work, mediated through a playful use of colour, material and surface.
PNEUMA
Each work sits as a different entity yet bound together like a constellation. Dream images appear like phantoms as we look through the skin of the glass. The refractions of light on the surrounding surface shift between a strong blaze of colour to a diffused glow barely noticeable as time passes.
The work expands beyond it’s physical body as light stretches across its surrounding surface. Looking into a transcendent state of mind, the works explore our psyche in flux - moving between altered states of consciousness.
Taking inspiration from Dorothea Tanning’s surrealist painting ‘Some roses and Their Phantoms’ where animal-like creatures emerge from the domestic still-life of a crumpled tablecloth Bliss focuses our attention on the shifting nature of the domestic and how our minds can enter alternate worlds as we shift in and out of focus between reality and our subconscious. The everyday holds a ‘quiet mystery’ mutating constantly often passed unnoticed - like air in motion.