Bow Arts speaks to artist Jody DeSchutter about their Dadaist inspirations and the reoccurring theme of paradox in their work.
Introduce yourself and tell us a little about your practice?
Hello! My name is Jody DeSchutter and I am an interdisciplinary artist from Canada, working and living in London. I work across and between painting, sound, spoken word, performance, and sculpture
What are you working on at the moment?
I am currently working on a new larger scale body of paintings, the first of which is currently on show in the viewing room at Matt Carey-Williams’ Gallery. I’m also searching for a label to release a spoken word and sound album recently finished; this was made by myself and my partner Dan Allison as BAG and produced by Laima Leyton, so hopefully that will be out in the near future.
What’s the drive/motivation behind your work?
I think I create as a way to ask questions and try to make some kind of sense of things which I find incomprehensible or paradoxical. I am absolutely hooked on reading about quantum physics and experiencing that moment of nearly understanding something so incomprehensible, almost touching it and then watching it dissolve back again into something outside my available modes of understanding.
How does perception of the world inspire your works?
I am fascinated by the way perception, observation, experience, and environment form these endless feedback loops that ultimately shape our personal and collective reality. This constantly feeds into my work and research.
What themes are you interested in?
I am drawn to the idea of paradox, the spaces in between categories, and the construction of reality. I love the idea of using images or language to try and reach toward or describe something indescribable. As we try to pin down entities that are constantly in flux or try to make the invisible visible, we ultimately make new and different entities and can create or point to new ways of being/ understanding.
Who are your artistic influences/inspirations?
Early on I found lots of inspiration in the Dada movement; the notion of nonsensicality has followed me and sort of been re-digested multiple times in the context of my own practice.
I have always been drawn to surrealist painters (and poets), and loved seeing Dorothea Tanning at the Tate. Her work really appealed to my thirst for the ‘strange’ or the ‘unknowable’.
Listening to Sylvia Plath read her poetry, or to Laurie Anderson modulate her verse, have also left indelible marks on me- how words took on another life through their voice and cadence.
Currently, I am drawing inspiration from texts in the realm of consciousness, perception, the quantum, or philosophical. Some authors like Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, Donald Hoffman, James Bridle among others have been with me in the studio a lot recently.
How has having an affordable studio impacted your practice/what is it you like about having your studio?
Finding an affordable studio space close enough to my house with Bow Arts has enabled me to grow into and develop my artistic practice. It has been absolutely vital in being able to professionalise my practice. I am really grateful to be able to have a dedicated space for making which is separate from my laundry, dishes, or other ways of making income.
What are the challenges you face as an artist/designer/maker?
The overarching challenge is balancing time and making rent at home frankly. Until very recently (just now in fact!) I was working full time to keep up with living expenses and getting to the studio and rehearsals on evenings and weekends. Again, having an affordable studio space was step number one towards being able to shift income sources into alignment with my art practice
Where can we find your work?
You can find my work at www.JodyDeSchutter.com or on instagram @jodydeschutter – thank you!
Bio
DeSchutter embraces diverse media which loop back on and into each other. Surface, form, and sound celebrate a lack of singular origin, they embrace paradox and uncertainty. She is interested in how the endless feedback loops comprised of observation, perception, experience, and environment shape our personal and collective reality.
Using cues and scaffolding indebted to established modalities or traditions, DeSchutter twists, grasps, and signals towards otherness, the not-yet-known, and the unknowable; leading the viewer down unarticulated corridors of mutating ideas.
This draws from an interest in other modes of understanding or ways of making the invisible visible, such as a Feynman diagram, baptism, or a spiritual ceremony. There is something infinitely provocative about the overlapping and recessing spaces between them. Especially as these perforated expanses seem to become more buried and alienated in the outside world in favour of clear sections or sides.
Perhaps revelation dissolves or changes the moment it is delineated or perhaps delineation is the only way we can come to knowing it.