Conjunctions

Conjunctions

Once an object becomes removed from its place of origin it is open to interpretations and associations. By 'drawing out' the objects, intervening, manipulating, assembling and reassembling them, relationships between nature and culture are created.

In the series Conjunctions I juxtaposed man made objects (metal fittings and rods) with organic fragments (stems of wood, which were sometimes cast into bronze or electroplated). The result is spear like objects, which are open to interpretations.

“Extension itself is the subject of Conjunctions (1999) (cat. 15-18), a wall installation of bronze and electroplated stems of wood with metal fittings that, like the ethnographic artefacts of some missing tribe, stretch and strain horizontally as if an invisible arrow pointing backwards in time through the pierced space. The seeming disjunction between the title of the piece following, which speaks to action of joining, and the solitary outward-bound nature of the spears, adds to their mysterious hold on the viewer’s imagination. Extensions makes other connections possible, brings energy and direction.

- Irena Zantovska Murray: “Sylvia Safdie, The Inventory of Invention” pg. 16, Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, 2000.