Jasmir creed is a painter who captures the the feelings of walking through a city, her practice mainly focuses on the architecture and behaviour in Manchester and Liverpool replicating the hustle and bustle, alienation and dis-orientations of life in metropolises. Creed’s unique style paints these emotions in a fragmented style; movement, disorientation and unfamiliar depth is her way of allowing you see as she does “the city as rich forest-like environment of the known and unknown”. this quote creed used to explain her feelings of the surroundings and her work is beautiful, the juxtaposition and un-naturalness of these two coming together perfectly summarises her work; “geometric and organic with exaggerated simplified forms” Creed’s pieces in many way grounds me and allows us to somehow relate and remember everything she depicts.
Her work “fragmentation” is one that really inspires me, layering a blackout pattern on top of beautiful monochrome figures and then using the lines from these fragmented shapes to add a cubist, surrealist element to the piece explaining real life blackouts, anomalies and the looming questions. it explains and sympathises with our knowledge that the unknown is far greater than our own life, and that we are constantly surrounded by it, wether it be; who are these people in this crowd ,what are they like, whats behind that door, or what will tomorrow bring? these frantic questions illustrates her life and alienation we can feel despite being surrounded by hundreds, the movement i can feel in this image demonstrates this.
creed explains how her practice begins from walking around taking photos and then rather than a digital process she then physically cuts up and dismantles her views into strange montages of otherwise familiar scenes. this seems like a really interesting way to work and had inspired me to be more relaxed and open with my work.
https://liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2019/01/23/dystopolis-in-conversation-with-jasmir-creed/
https://www.artinliverpool.com/review-jasmir-creed-dystopolis-at-the-vgm/
https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/wimbledon-college-of-arts/stories/ba-painting-and-mfa-fine-art-graduate-jasmir-creed-exhibits-work-in-solo-show-dystopolis