JEMMA EGAN
she/her | b. Liverpool, UK | based in London
Jemma Egan’s work investigates objects, consumer products and cultural practices that are representative of our present moment. Working through ideas of production, consumption, craft and labour, she engages with subjects in a way that considers the terms of their existence within the world.
Egan is most interested in objects that are in some way representative of class, taste, or value, and in circumstances when the connection between these things seems tenuous or inconsistent. She is drawn to notions of ‘real’ and ‘fake’, of high versus low culture, and plays with forms of imitation and masquerade. Her work attempts to challenge or foreground the thin and often arbitrary lines that distinguish one class of these things from the other.
Egan works in a variety of media, allowing the subjects to direct the method of working. She celebrates the objects and criticises them at the same time. Working with physical materials allows her to work out thoughts and emotions as they relate to the subject matter. She attempts to challenge the ‘seriousness’ of contemporary art in this way, through humour but also through attention to process and detail.
