Virginia Overton

Virginia Overton’s work concerns process, rationality and memory. The sculptures and installations are made of easily found materials and images of common things and are constructed so that they can be reused. Depending on their positioning and the movement of the viewer her installations convey a specific message for a volatile moment, but as quickly as it was made the sculpture can be dissolved leaving only a stack of materials behind. This recursive process imprints the memory of past utilisations on the materials: if two boards were screwed together, a hole is left when they are unscrewed. Similarly, dents and cracks begin to appear on surfaces of wood or acrylic in the course of building a sculpture. The objects and images absorb a history through this accumulation of marks, thus becoming more than just ‘raw’ materials. Using and re-designating materials allows both flexibility in the practice and the creation of a vocabulary; there is an underlying economical motivation in using materials more than once. This way of creating allows for greater plasticity while de-emphasizing the preciousness of each object. As each new element is introduced, the dynamic of the whole undergoes a shift. The sculptures and installations exist in relationship to one another and their surrounding space.