Irene Briant: Distant Fields

Without the imagery words used in descriptions of the cosmos or outer space - millions of light years away, black holes, quasars, superclusters, galaxies, infinite dark voids, star fields…are enough to set the imagination whirring.

Even with recent advances in our understanding of the solar system due to instruments such as the NASA’s Hubble telescope and more recently the James Webb telescope, how our universe works and what it looks like, are still intriguing concepts.

- Irene Briant

It’s hard to put into words the scope of Irene’s latest exhibition ‘Distant Fields’. With an artistic career spanning four decades and nearing her 90th birthday, this is a hugely significant show.

The allure of what may be out in the universe has captivated Irene’s imagination for most of her life, particularly when she was younger, witnessing the advent of space exploration and scientific discovery, a time where the whole world turned its attention to the great beyond.

It is this fascination that Irene explores in her new exhibition; colliding the biggest questions of our collective consciousness with the most seemingly mundane artefacts we surround ourselves with. There might seem to be no discrimination to the collection of these items - brightly coloured silicones (mass produced by globalised, industrial factories) sit next to acorns, rusted bits of metal, broken pieces of antique ceramics, inside gently worn timber boxes.

But there is true poetry and beauty in the simple existence of these objects. They are carefully collected and arranged, with the precision of a scientist, by Irene’s eye and hand.  She looks for pleasing similarities in objects, whether it’s a scuff mark of a different colour, a hole in a piece of wood, or the attractive shape of a curve. Together, these visual cues tell a bigger story.

While a number of works in the show are reminiscent of our landscapes on Earth, others are left more to the imagination – still-life accumulations document the material diversity of our universe while still referencing the geometric patterns of the solar systems that surround us.

Despite this intense consideration, Irene calls herself an ‘opportunist’. As if she is just a bystander to these creations and they find their own way into her hand. This is true in some ways, visiting her studio is like a museum to the found object. Shelves of different collections and little trays of bones and copper wire are found in every room. She discovers a lot of these things herself, sometimes deliberately, by visiting the op shops, or by walking the streets of her neighbourhood. Other, more lucky treasures, pass through many hands to reach her, set aside and delivered by careful friends to her doorstep.

However they make it to Irene, she imbues them with this unexplainable magic; she lets mystery and the familiar sit hand in hand, and wholly, if this is not a representation of life on earth, I’m not sure what else can be said.

• Tilley Wood October, 2024.