14 June - 2 July 2007
about the exhibition
Using earthenware clay and an array of vibrantly coloured glazes, Jenny Orchard brings to life her exotic hybrid “Creatures”, each one possessing a mesmeric charisma and exhibiting a complete defiance of convention. In her latest body of work, Jenny explains, the creatures are all multispecies; they embody a multiplicity of forms without implying a hierarchy. “Once laboratory discards and misfits they now visit me from a special place I call ‘Metempsychosia’, I recreate their forms for you so that they may tell their stories”. Jenny’s hybrids are at once plant and animal yet show signs of the technological exploitations and biological explorations that have created them. Her heterogeneous totems have a physicality of size within the gallery space that gives them a shamanistic presence, the viewer seduced by the myriad of detail and range of surface texture each contains. They rejuvenate within us a child-like wonder of life on the planet, and conversely invite us to contemplate the darker notions of our meddling with it.
Born in Turkey, Jenny grew up in Zimbabwe and emigrated to Australia in 1976. She studied at the Alexander Mackie School of Art (now the College of Fine Arts) in Sydney, where she received a Diploma of Fine Art in 1980. She then completed her Masters of Fine Arts in 2007. Jenny has exhibited widely in Australia and has participated in shows in Japan, Germany, Italy and the USA. Her work has been extensively acquired and is represented, amongst others, in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Power House Museum, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery; Art Gallery of South Australia and National Gallery of Victoria. This is her fifth solo show with Beaver Galleries.
