Talking Practice: Freya Jobbins
We chatted with artist Freya Jobbins (pictured above) about her interesting practice of creating sculptures from discarded and unwanted toys. Have a read!
We’d love to know your background and your journey to becoming a sculptor:
Many roads led me to where I am today - being a full-time professional artist was my dream as a child. School was about art, basketball, friends and trying to stay out of trouble. I was born in Johannesburg South Africa to German parents, and then at 8 years immigrated to Australia in 1974. After a stint at a migrant hostel in Coogee we moved to a young Campbelltown.
My first memory of creating 3D was building my imitation Barbie’s home, from rooms, furniture to clothes aged about 10 years. I preferred building and repair with my father than cooking and cleaning with my mother.
Two years after the HSC I got a ‘real job’ by joining the Police Force, after a relatively short career of 8 years which was abruptly cut short due to a serious head on crash. Later after our kids went to school, I went to TAFE where it took me four years part time to get a Diploma in Fine Art. Inspirational teachers were John Taranto, Lorna Grear and Falaka Yimer.
Another 9 years later I started my BVA as one child finished Uni and another was doing his HSC. So I continued my arts practice whilst studying at Penrith TAFE and Federation University, by still exhibiting, creating new work and entering art prizes. Di Holdsworth another assemblage artist was another influential teacher for me.
I have been a practicing artist now over 12 years but I still see myself as early career, now with space and time to create in a dependant free home with 2 studios, a big shed full of tools and willing ‘assistant’ (hubby).
Tell us about your sculptures:
I work across assemblage, installation, collage, printmaking and photography.
Most of my sculptures are assemblages, 3D and 2D pieces created from discarded and unwanted toys, (the sustainable aspect of my practice is especially important to me. I focus on the reuse of as much of my materials where possible. AND I reuse old works in new works, or I take them apart and reuse the plastic pieces in new works).
I have found that I am obsessed with placement, patterning and texture. First noticing this when I worked as a mosaic artist- creating many public art works and commissions, I was driven not only by creating work of a high standard but also chasing that perfect piece to fit. From Mosaic to collage to assemblage, I was always ‘placing’ pieces, then I noticed even though I really disliked portrait painting during art school I started to focus mainly on faces. The symmetry of the humanoid face and the deconstructing and reconstructing of human like toys and placing them to represent parts of the ‘face’ began to just dominate my practice. From 3D busts and 2D wall hangings of colourful children’s toys in iconic characters like BATMAN, FRIDA and BART (pictured above) to a now flesh tone dominance (using baby, Barbie and Bratz dolls) where I produce smaller sculptures and series of masks worn by myself and models which I now photograph.
I work to a size that would fit in my car or can fit in a car trailer like my giant wedding cake sculpture that was commissioned by Penrith Regional Gallery PARTY 1 AND PARTY 2 (above right). I also created giant chicken wings RAWCHICKENWINGPROJECT (above left), but these large works take a long time to complete and require a large amount of materials like, ZEUS (below - top left), CASSIOPEI (below - bottom left) and JUNO (below - top right). Nowadays I try not to go too BIG, sticking to smaller works like VANITAS, SKINFAXI (little horse) (below - bottom right) and my guns FINGERPOINTING SERIES.
The themes I explore are notions of identity, motifs and my own dissimulation. The environment is featuring more often in my work now. With the current work in my studio I am working with organic matter mainly sticks and bark, recycled cardboard, brown paper, homemade glue and reusing some of my plastic masks creating 5 human like cocoons specifically for a sculpture prize in Sydney.
I also have another project on the go and that is THE BRAIN, using lightweight Hebel carved into the shape of a human brain and covering it with tiny Barbies in the patterning grooves of the each gyrus..
I like how my work has been described as provocative, humourous and disturbing and it can seduce and repel at the same time. I like to be the instigator of conversation and not a decorator.
Tell us about your creative process:
The best ideas I get are at 3am in the morning, so I have a diary full of ideas madly scribbled in sometimes illegible handwriting. And my phone has way too many images of things that inspire or trigger an idea I need to keep and look at later. I usually work in series but sometimes there are orphan works that just pop up in the middle of bodies of works.
Where is your studio?
My studios are at home which is surrounded by bushland on a 30 acres property about 1.5hours out of Sydney CBD. I also have a collage studio space (plenty of bedrooms to create more art spaces now).
I can average 4 hours a day on my sculptures, when I am working on a body of work, sometimes its 8 hours and some days I am don’t leave the studio. Otherwise I can go for only a few days without creating but I find that hard, I find I am creating every single day. (If I am not sitting at the laptop and writing grant applications, proposals or answering questions about my art lol)
How long does it take to finish a sculpture?
One work can take months to complete, depends if I have enough material to complete it, like THE BRAIN this project is a long term project as I need hundreds of Barbie ears to complete this orphan piece. Other works like the masks I can complete in 3 days not including the time it takes me to make the bases from plaster bandages.
Do you do drawings or maquettes before working on a larger scale?
Yes I do some prelim sketches of works and I have been known to create a maquette or two (which become artworks as well) I do write a lot of notes and research my ideas still filling my VA diary like a good student.
What inspires your practice?
Other artists – especially all the talented women artists in this country that go unseen and unappreciated. These artists create such amazing work and this keeps me going, they always stop me from quitting this crazy artworld, as I create to speak, to be heard, otherwise there will be not record of what me the person actually thought.
What project/s are you working on at the moment?
Right now I have four projects running. I am creating human cocoons x 5 for a sculpture prize, I am also trying to finish THE BRAIN (pictured left - work in progress) and I am also working on a collage self portrait about being a woman on / in this land for a group show.
Do you have any favourite artists or sculptors?
Rosalie Gascoigne, Lindy Ivimey, Penny Byrne, Fiona Hall, Louise Nevelson, Kaarina Kaikkonen (Finland), Arcrimboldo, Giacometti and Franz West of course just to name a few.
Anything else you would like to share?
If readers want to donate unwanted baby, Barbie and Bratz dolls, which can be missing a limb/head/clothes, they don’t have to be perfect, to be reused in my practice I would be very grateful – less plastic into landfill. You can send them to P.O.Box 304 Picton NSW 2571, thank you.