Zuzanna Janin has consistently worked with objects and images that suggest the passage of time, and memories of particular people and places. There is an element of vanitas to these themes. In Skull - an installation related to the artist's work for TRACE - filmed images of a dancer dancing with her own shadow are projected onto the wall through a gigantic wire outline of a human skull.
Shadow lines that follow the contours of the skull blend with the image on the wall, weaving through the dancer's body. The projected grid is reminiscent of medical imaging technologies: a reference that reminds us of the frailty of the human body, even while the gigantic proportions of the projected figures give the work a nightmarish quality.
The projected images may also be read as memories played out 'inside the head'. Janin's installations invariably link the body, memory, light and space in this way. Some of her earlier works recreated spaces recalled from daily life. Shadows of rooms she had once occupied were reconstructed out of parachute silk. This material is so light that it moves with even the smallest disturbance of the air: responding, in this case, to the passage of a viewer through the room. It also holds light in an extraordinarily atmospheric way, creating an ethereal architecture out of light and shadow.
More recently, Janin has used photographic assemblages to explore the passage of time. By layering full-length portraits of her own body with photographs of family members who closely resemble her genetically, she evokes a span of ages in one individual. In this way she creates the illusion of her body aging in front of our eyes from infant to old woman. Car, the installation she has made for TRACE, also suggests passage. The car of the title is a copper wire network derived from computer-generated drawings of a car in 3D. A film in real time of the artist's daily journey between home, studio and gallery is projected onto the car, casting shadows of its wiry contours onto the wall behind.
The camera has been placed at eye level with a view of the road ahead and the rear view mirror. The effect is of space moving away in both directions simultaneously, like past and future receding from the present. All of these works in some way suspend the linear perception of time, allowing us an intimation of eternity. Yet equally, they all have a documentary quality, as Janin seeks to grasp the elusive structure of memory itself.
[LESS]Zuzanna Janin has consistently worked with objects and images that suggest the passage of time, and memories of particular people and places. There is an element of vanitas to these themes. In Skull - an installation related to the artist's work for TRACE - filmed images of a dancer dancing with her own shadow are projected onto the wall through a gigantic wire outline of a human skull.
Shadow lines that follow the contours of the skull blend with the image on the wall, weaving through the dancer's body. The projected grid is reminiscent of medical imaging technologies: a reference that reminds us of the frailty of the human body, even while the gigantic proportions of the projected figures give the work a nightmarish quality.
The projected images may also be read as memories played out 'inside the head'. Janin's installations invariably link the body, memory, light and space in this way. Some of her earlier works recreated spaces recalled from daily life. Shadows of rooms she had once occupied were reconstructed out of parachute silk. This material is so light that it moves with even the smallest disturbance of the air: responding, in this case, to the passage of a viewer through the room. It also holds light in an extraordinarily atmospheric way, creating an ethereal architecture out of light and shadow.
More recently, Janin has used photographic assemblages to explore the passage of time. By layering full-length portraits of her own body with photographs of family members who closely resemble her genetically, she evokes a span of ages in one individual. In this way she creates the illusion of her body aging in front of our eyes from infant to old woman. Car, the installation she has made for TRACE, also suggests passage. The car of the title is a copper wire network derived from computer-generated drawings of a car in 3D. A film in real time of the artist's daily journey between home, studio and gallery is projected onto the car, casting shadows of its wiry contours onto the wall behind.
The camera has been placed at eye level with a view of the road ahead and the rear view mirror. The effect is of space moving away in both directions simultaneously, like past and future receding from the present. All of these works in some way suspend the linear perception of time, allowing us an intimation of eternity. Yet equally, they all have a documentary quality, as Janin seeks to grasp the elusive structure of memory itself.
