Ten Years: An exhibition of Sculptures and Prints by J.S. CHANCE

About

The works relate to notions of exploration and transcendence - we feel a strong sense of a solitary individual embarking on a journey through a landscape both endlessly barren and eternally peaceful, composing a personal iconographic language from the remains of a post-human wasteland. We see him collecting objects and images which are then reconfigured and transformed into something deeper, something that exists beyond their immanent appearance whilst simultaneously celebrating their original material quality. We see a piece of rope, saturated by coagulating plaster, placed on a makeshift altar; through its context (and latent association to a wick), it becomes a candle, without denying or losing any of its ‘ropeness’; it is both at once, and more than either alone. 

In opposition to the ironic post-modernist, wallowing in the tawdry, cynical meaninglessness of our age, J.S. Chance aims to reassert meaning and sincerity whilst retaining a sense of playfulness and ambiguity. This meta-modern reconstructivism is grounded through the use of humble materials and transparency of process. Wood, wire, rust, brick and plaster are married and feel totally natural in combination, their honest purity occasionally disturbed or enlivened by something pointedly foreign; coloured plastic, patterned paper or cheap ribbon. 

The three-dimensional works are complemented by monotypes which use distilled landscape motifs to suggest a search for the spiritual foundation that underlies our experience and sense of place in the environment.

About the artist

J.S. Chance studied at Stourbridge College of Art in the mid-1970s under sculptor Stephen Cox, followed by post-graduate study at St Martin’s, working with Philip King and Alan Gouk. After a period working as a scaffolder and selling woodburning stoves, he got a job as an art technician, which led to a postgraduate certificate in art education at Birmingham Polytechnic. He has now been enabled to return to work as a full-time artist, having retired from a teaching career which spanned over 30 years in various schools around England, most recently teaching sculpture at Bedford School.