Victoria Hempstead is an Australian artist whose practice explores the agency of materials, and is a reflection on ephemerality. I set down with her on 16 October 2020, in Sydney Australia, to speak about her fascination with metal, her primary material, and what trajectory her practice took to reach the point where it is currently at.
We also spoke about intuition and importance of slowing down. About the connection between confidence and the value-systems. About the role of beauty in dealing with trauma. About the fine line between resting and falling into lethargy. About the value of collaboration and creative conversations. About embracing mistakes and the importance of playfulness. And about notepads, voice memos, and dream diaries.
This podcast was recorded and produced on the stolen lands of the people of Eora nation. We pay our respect to elders past and present; and our gratitude for the care they have given to this land. It is our hope to learn from their wisdom.
TRANSCRIPT
Ira Ferris: Your primary material is metal. What about it fascinates you and how did you come to it?
Victoria Hempstead: It's something I've actually been reflecting on quite a lot recently because I've realized that I've come full circle to what I was interested in at the beginning, when I started my university degree. I got into art school because of my drawing capabilities. I'm quite a good draftsman. And I ended up in the printmaking department; we were doing lots of lithography. We were learning how to etch. So, it was all based in these flat surfaces. And I was very much drawn to the metal etching, more so than carving into wood. And when it came to printing; I didn't like printing the plates on paper. I just liked exhibiting the plates as they were and loved the imperfections of the scratches on the plate and then rubbing the inks into the plate to give that illusion of the shadow. In the first exhibition I ever did, I exhibited the print plants rather than the paper, and I completely forgot about that until moving into this house recently in May and unpacking some of my older work. And these plates were in the boxes that I hadn't touched in a really long time. And I made the realization that the fascination with metal has been there for a really long time. What I love is that it's really temperamental. It's a material that pushes back. Generally, when you're working with painting, you are very much in control of what's being put. You choose whatever you're going to convey and then you paint that. And with metal, it's this two-part relationship. There are limitations of what you can do within the material. And I like pushing up against that. And a lot of my practice is about corroding the metal, allowing it to decay, making the metal rust by pushing the boundary of where the stable point is within the metal. It then talks back to me and I really enjoy that. I enjoy the gesture being a shared act between the material and myself. Even though, I've set the situation up, it is completely out of my control what the final piece will be. In my entire practice, I love polarities. I like looking at extremes, but not because I want to look at the black and white of a situation, I kind of want to see everything that's in between and explore the grey area. And by choosing two things that sit at opposite ends of each other, they do have a meeting point and then where is that? And so metal and me kind of feels like that in a way.
Ira Ferris: And how do you know when the time to finish is; time to stop and exhibit the work?
Victoria Hempstead: I just go by feel and intuition. A lot of my practice is quite structured. I've got a very specific methodology that I stick to when I'm making the metal pieces. When it then comes to knowing when an artwork is done, it's just purely on an emotional sphere of where I feel like it's now reached the point where I can encapsulate it. But in saying that, ... So, with the work that I make, I expose the steel to water and salt and that corrodes the surface over a period of time. And then, like you said, I choose the finishing point and then I set it in resin and I put a coat of resin over the top. But it still continues to age beyond that point. So even though I've selected this point of where I aesthetically love it, it's still deciding to continue on that path and it will change. So, I suppose I don't get to pick the end point; it kind of picks itself. And, until the work doesn't exist anymore, it will continue to change. And that's also really important in my practice; the artwork being a reminder that there isn't really anything within our control, and that's where the beauty in objects really lies. In all the pieces that I've made, it always harks back to that idea of ephemerality and the temporality. Understanding that and appreciating it, respecting it.
Ira Ferris: Yes, I was wondering if intuition plays a role in your work, and now you spoke about that. How do you nurture that state, that intuitive state? Are there some daily rituals or practices that you do in order for that space within you to flourish? And what are the things that obstruct that state?
Victoria Hempstead: I'd say that up until probably a year ago, it wasn't something I was examining enough. But then I become really attentive to having a healthy meditation practice and doing breath-work routines every morning. And so, creating these rituals within my own life and putting time aside in the morning and throughout the day for myself has found its way into the practice. In trusting in yourself, and the more that you do it, the intuition just becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.
Ira Ferris: Yes. I wanted to talk to you about your working methodologies, and these daily rituals sound like a part of that. Are there any other working methodologies that you have, as a way to map your thoughts or document development of a certain idea? Do you, for instance, buy a notepad and write, or read something, or listen to music? What is that process like for you?
Victoria Hempstead: I used to be really focused on fitting my practice into an art theory; relating it back to this theorist and philosophy and having it speak to this art canon and I eventually just became really disenchanted by that. It felt so forced at times that you would seek these theories, which would then explain what you were thinking about rather than going to your thought process and that being the origin of where the work came from. And so nowadays, I read a lot of books which are not related to art. Books that talk to different ways of approaching life or will look at navigation or nutritional health and the body. And while that doesn't necessarily have a direct connection to art, I find it's actually the most enriching for my practice. I've been reading this fantastic book called Wayfinding. The author speaks about how navigation, memory and the idea of place - the triangulation of those three things - is who we are and how we find our belonging. And with the GPS and Google Maps and all these things, we've become really disconnected from our idea of place and the body's connection to space and therefore we have this deep yearning, that we are seeing universally, to understanding who we are. And so that is something that I've been exploring, and I think that's finding its way into my practice.
Ira Ferris: I've heard you speak about necessity or importance of slowing down. You said that slowing down is the foundation for strong practice.
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, I believe so, yeah. This discovery of slowing down has allowed me to really think about everything I do with purpose; why I'm doing it. It's a difficult balance, because there's on the one side intuition and then there's on the other thinking about it and reflecting. But having that in a constant dialogue is really important, I think. And in the current climate that we live in, we no longer value slowing down. We no longer value not knowing something and then taking the time to make that discovery within ourselves.
Ira Ferris: It requires a certain amount of confidence, to be able to trust in that process. To trust that it's fine if you're in an ‘in between space’ in your practice. Has your confidence changed over time and what caused that change?
Victoria Hempstead: Yes definitely. I was't very confident in my practice up until recently. I went to art school, did my masters, and then came out and had a practice. But it wasn't a very strong one and I felt really disconnected from it. And I actually stepped away from art for four to five years and decided that it wasn't for me and that I wasn't a "real artist" because I didn't look and act and practice in the same way that I saw other people do it. And so, I just felt that there wasn't that same belonging in there for me. And only in having a crisis in my life did I then find my way back to making work. And that was two years ago. I got to this point where I was mentally really unwell, deeply depressed and had quit the job that I had. And also, my partner and I were running a business at the time, and we shut that down. And so, I didn't have anything to do. And so, for two months, I just decided that I wouldn't do anything and I would just stay at home. And in one way it was terrible. But in another way, it made me then, in boredom, do the things that I should have been doing all along. So, in sitting with yourself, it's really interesting what you get drawn to and what I got drawn to is making food, cooking a lot, looking into my nutrition, starting a meditation practice, doing breath-work, and I also started making artwork again. And I had the realization that this is just what I needed to do for me to be healthy and if that wasn't connected with other people's idea of success or, you know, having a commercial gallery represent you or having X amount of shows or hitting all these make-believe targets, then that's OK. And I made this pact with myself that I would just do it true to myself and whether or not that then worked out for other people and their boxes didn't really matter because I'd gone and done all the other things, hated it, and then turned back to art. And so, the confidence that I now have is in knowing that this comes from a really honest, transparent place within me and hopefully that connects with people but at the end of the day, it makes me really happy.
Ira Ferris: And happier we are, we have capacity to make others happy. I think it's so important to find the thing that makes you happy. It sounds like a selfish act. People think of it as a selfish act but it's actually almost an altruism. And I love how you spoke about first starting with self-care, your own nutrition, your own body and that then extended in what you have to offer. And that offering is the end point; how it's received is not really ...
Victoria Hempstead: It's not really my responsibility. And that was something else that I... In doing the work on myself, I started reading a lot about feelings and different emotions that come up. And at the end of the day, you can only be really responsible for your own and you can't take on the weight of other people's emotions. And once that kind of clicked for me, while it's not perfect, obviously I care about what people think at times; it's helped me make better work and just be happier in my day to day. And I think with the show that I have done recently, it was the first body of work that I approached from this framework. And the response that I've gotten from it is that people, without me even explaining it, get those sensations immediately. And I think that's really special. So, it's really lucky to have had that.
Ira Ferris: There's an energy that's put into the work that is then received...
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah.
“What I love about metal is that it's temperamental. It's a material that pushes back. There are limitations to what you can do with it. And I like pushing up against that. It talks back to me, so it's a two-part relationship.
I really enjoy that; the gesture being a shared act between the material and myself.”
(image courtesy of Victoria Hempstead)
Ira Ferris: Since you've mentioned the responsibility, I was wanting to ask you whether you feel that art has a social function, a social responsibility or is it free from that?
Victoria Hempstead: I think it's a little bit of both. I was listening to a podcast and this person was interviewing Amanda Palmer and they were talking about what function does art have. And she said something which I constantly think back to. She said: you know, art was a form of communication, relaying stories of survival, of cultural history within tribes to one another. It didn't have this monetary function. It's only later on that we've kind of attached that to it. And so, I think that definitely has a community element to it and once that goes art becomes something really different. I think the richer bodies of work come from collaboration or reflection upon community or reflection upon our society from a universal point of view.
Ira Ferris: And what about beauty?
Victoria Hempstead: Oh yeah! I think, ... I don't know. Beauty is a hard one. I find beauty in things which are almost gone; things that are decaying and you kind of catch them at the last minute. You know, we have a societal fear of death, but being with someone through their transition point is a really special experience. And so, I think that's also really beautiful. But I understand that other people probably wouldn't say that. That's not immediately the first thing they think of when they think of beauty. But, yeah, I don't know. I haven't figured that one out yet. And I think I find traditional paintings from the Renaissance beautiful. But then, like I said, also things that are in the state of transition and decay. I find that also really stunning.
Ira Ferris: That's precisely why I have asked you this question. Because the charcoal pieces that you are currently exhibiting are remnants of bushfires that happened to Australia recently, and so that is obviously something painful and in that way ugly but you have transformed it into something that has a new life and is beautiful. It was Gerhard Richter who, I believe, said that beauty is in hope.
Victoria Hempstead: I love that! That's great... Yeah, the charcoal pieces are pairs of tree branches which I collected from the fires. And the entire exhibition is about the aftermath of the 2019/2020 fires. One of the first things I saw when I came to these different sites was the magnitude of how bad it was and the scale at which it just decimated everything. It's incomprehensible. It's why I wanted to see it in person. Not to empathize through television screen but to really understand what we were dealing with. And so, the branches were something that I began to collect, along with ash and a few other things. And while I was in this landscape, visually, what it looked like was the ash was about a foot high and it was a very delicate white grey, very similar to snow. And it blanketed everything. And the sky was very similar tone. So, you had this visual effect of one melting into the other and you couldn't differentiate the vertical from the horizontal. And then in the middle, you had these black totems of these tree trunks just standing there, and they were floating visually in the abyss of what had happened. And so, I wanted to convey that. It was a thing of beauty and then also a thing of horror, of seeing that. And then the other part of the sculpture is that quite often when I was looking at a tree, two of the limbs would be leaning into each other as if they were comforting or protecting one another from the fire, you know, similar to friends or family members kind of embracing. And so that familiarity of human fragility really began to become visible for me in the landscape. And so, the pieces, the sculptures float; the two branches in mid-air and then leaning into each other. And the works are called HUDDLE to talk to that fragility, which sits between an object still existing, but just barely. It's like being held together by just few strands of charcoal and at any moment it could fall apart and crumble. It was important for me to not coat, so the branches are uncoated. They are in their natural state. I have coated them in a very thin layer of polyurethane just to kind of make sure the charcoal isn't going into the air and when you brush past it, it doesn't come off on you. But aside from that, they're in their natural state. And I wanted that to stay that way rather than casting them or covering them in some form, because I didn't want to romanticize what had happened. I didn't want to beautify it in a way that would make it easier to digest. I think they sit there as a reminder of how bad it can get. And yes, it's a bit dark but I also think that it then, like you said, brings out this idea of hope that it won't be as bad the next time, that we will do more to do better, and hopefully the fires in subsequent times won't be as horrible.
Ira Ferris: What you are saying makes me think of this quote from Kathleen Mary Higgins, and it's from her essay ‘Whatever happened to beauty: A response to Danto’. She writes that "beauty typically urges renewed love of life," beauty "provides the comforting background against which one can think the uncomfortable. Beauty assures us that something real is loveable. With that awareness, we are capable of the courage to face what is not."
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, I really love that. And I think trauma has this inevitable capability of making you see what's important and seeing the beauty. And again, those polarities can't live without each other. And in picturing or displaying something that focuses on death or decay or a transition point, I think emotionally it then brings out the opposite in humans.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, a couple of people recently spoke about how pessimism and optimism always come hand in hand, which seems related to what you're saying. And that makes me think about the time that we live in now, which is time of pandemic, time that is extremely traumatic and I feel maybe we're not even aware of how traumatic it is because we are in the thick of living it.
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, it will have an ongoing effect for many years to come.
Ira Ferris: Yes, but let's focus on positive for a moment. In the same way that you were speaking about these charcoal pieces and how the trauma brought out hope, what did this time of Covid bring up for you that is hopeful?
Victoria Hempstead: Great question. I think it gave me more space to continue to digest aspects of my life that I still have to be attentive to. Most of us think that we deal with something once, get beyond it, and we don't really need to revisit that ever again. And Covid taught me that, no you do. And it's really important that you make the space to step back into those other parts of yourself that are imperfect and not in search to make them perfect or to clean it up, but just to remain in touch with all different parts of yourself. Again, going back to that slowness. And I really hope that once we move past this point, I don't forget about that and that we don't go back to the previous norm of what was. Cause I think we've had this opportunity to be forced into something which we thought was impossible in our lifetime. Working from home, for instance. Or, the companies, if you're feeling unwell, they don't tell you anymore to just get over it and come in any way. They actually say: stay home, take care of yourself, make sure you're all right. Do you have the family support? You know, it's all these things which should be given but aren't or weren't for many, many years. And so, for me, the hope is that I firstly remember that in myself, to do that and then also to see that it also remains within the wider society.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, the prospect of caring for each other has increased. The capacity of exercising care. And I feel... You spoke a bit about this concept of spatial awareness earlier, and I feel that has increased as well. Because suddenly we need to be aware of other people in the space and of giving each other enough space, which I find beautiful. That's one of my favourite things that emerged from this. This courtesy of knowing how much space the other needs. I feel that space is always necessary. Not cramping on top of each other, not breeding on top of each other, not touching each other if we don't feel like being touched, which is...
Victoria Hempstead: Super important!
Ira Ferris: Yeah.
Victoria Hempstead: Touch is one of those things that we intrinsically need but at a time that we choose to have it and again, it's then giving consideration to the other. It's listening more, acting less. And I think that's been amazing at this time.
“Trauma has this inevitable capability of making you see what's important and seeing the beauty. Those polarities can't live without each other. In displaying something that focuses on death or decay or a transition point, I think emotionally it then brings out the opposite in humans.”
(image courtesy of Victoria Hempstead)
Ira Ferris: When it comes to slowing down and finding time to rest, there is one concern that emerges for me and it is how do you stop yourself from falling into lethargy? Because it's a fine line between having a structure, having your routine and then also leaving space for spontaneity and relaxation. And I'm questioning with myself, when is the moment when I really need the rest and when is the moment when I'm demotivated or falling into lethargy?
Victoria Hempstead: Or getting a bit indulgent.
Ira Ferris: Yeah.
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, I don't know. I kind of function in spurts. I'm like super high energy for X amount of time, especially if it's around a project or a certain piece of work. In the lead up to the exhibition, for the last five weeks in the lead up, I was working on it every day. And then when it was installed, I kind of stood back from it and realized how exhausted I was and how drained and how much I needed to recharge. But now that I've moved past this point, I think it's a good example of when comes the point when you need to get out of the routine of filling your day with nothing-nesses and find something which is instigating a new action. Sometimes it takes something to jolt me. So, something exterior coming in and being like, do you want to do this? I find collaborative work one of the best ways to get out of it. So, I've been doing a lot of collaborative pieces throughout Covid to try and counteract the lethargy that I do find. And in being at home, you can just fill your days with random things that are so unimportant and you just lose track of days and hours. And so, I think with the collaboration, it's like this beautiful point of being able to share ideas and have a communal space to create. And it's not all just on you; it's a shared responsibility. And you keep each other accountable. And the people that I'm doing the collaborative pieces with are struggling with the same thing. So, it's quite interesting that we've found each other and we're working together.
Ira Ferris: Yeah.
Victoria Hempstead: Are you struggling with it as well?
Ira Ferris: Oh yeah. I think everyone is struggling with that. I think it's a really hard balance to strike and also a hard thing to recognize, when it's one and when it's the other. I haven't yet met a person who does not have an issue with finding that balance. Yeah, I struggle with allowing myself a time to rest and relax and I realize that it's partly because of that fear that I might fall into lethargy and won't be able to get out of it. So, then I just keep working in order to prevent that. But that's obviously not healthy. So now I'm trying to learn how to have a pause.
Victoria Hempstead: As you were explaining that, I had the huge realization that I do that as well. Like manic to the point of having too many things in my day and then not giving myself time to rest. And I think it comes from the same place of this fear of not doing enough and being too self-indulgent and not being able to recognize it.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, and the fear of not doing enough is also so symptomatic in the arts because there is this constant need to prove that you are worth something, right?
Victoria Hempstead: Yes, absolutely.
Ira Ferris: Because, how do you even begin to answer a question: What are you doing? What are you working on? There is constantly this guilt that you are not doing enough, if there is no income coming from it, or if you're not constantly published or exhibiting.
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, there is like this momentum that you have to keep up and that if you would take a break, and someone asks you what are you working on and you say I'm not working on anything right now, it would be awkward. So, I think it's systematic of the expectation that you should always be working on the next best version of what you've been up to. Which is another thing that I've been looking at; this idea of having periods of making terrible things on purpose. So, it's just allowing myself to continue to make things without expectation attached to them. And so I just will do most mundane cut outs or just crap writing on a piece of paper just to kind of make sure to keep the value system in check; that it stays fun and intuitive rather than, like you said, this machine of 'what are you up to' constantly.
Ira Ferris: Yeah. Searching for fun! It's so easy to forget why you started doing this in the first place, which is because it was fun. And again, there is guilt associated with doing something that you love, something that makes you happy, and something that's fun. It's like totally anti-capitalist way of thinking. That's not work, right, if it's fun.
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah. If you're not suffering, it's not work.
Ira Ferris: Yeah. So, reclaiming that is important. And it's what lots of artists eventually struggle with. There eventually comes a point when one realises, I lost fun in this, I lost playfulness. And it makes me think of a thing that Richard Serra said; he said that art is a suspension of judgment and that it has to be playful. Is Richard Serra an influence on your work?
Victoria Hempstead: Hugely! His work, his fascination with metal; the material of metal is obviously a very close connection to me. And also land artists, because of their methodologies and their practice in connection with land. I find their works incredibly inspirational.
Ira Ferris: And you're also, as far as I'm aware, interested in the relationship between body and the landscape. And I've seen your Instagram post where you referenced Ana Mendieta as one of your influences, her 'Silueta' series…
Victoria Hempstead: Yes.
Ira Ferris: … where she is lying in an Aztec tomb and …
Victoria Hempstead: ... the foliage is growing and reclaiming her body. Yeah. And her work speaks a lot about trauma and terror, the connection and the healing that takes place in her submitting herself or giving herself over to the landscape. I think it is incredibly profound. Yeah. And with my own work, I mean, I wouldn't consider myself a performance artist, but everything I'm doing does have this performative element to it, which was pointed out to me the other day. And I don't really like getting in front of the camera or being photographed. It's something I try and stay clear off. But I think in order to truly speak about the body in landscape, there needs to be the act that is shared. And that requires me to have this performative interaction with the landscape, which I do with the paper pieces that I've been working on.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, I recognise two distinct aspects in your work: performative and durational. And they come in two ways. One is through your metal pieces which are performative and durational works in themselves, because they perform themselves over time. So, one is connected to the material. And then there is duration and performance enacted by you. The example are your paper pieces where you spent two whole days working non-stop, making these repetitive cuts. So here, it is you who is performing a durational action.
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, so this piece is on a sheet of paper which measures 1.5 metres by 4 metres. And I cut these repetitive triangles into the work with two strokes. The two strokes are representative of my movement through the landscape. And so the two strokes are cut where one end joins and then by folding that stroke back, it creates a triangle and that vertical presence to the horizontal paper is representative of my presence in the landscape and the whole body of work is called 'Beneath the Map', and it is an examination and an exploration into the limitations of Western cartography and the frameworks through which I've been taught to interpret landscape and how limiting that is. Going back to that book I've been reading, Wayfinding, it's opened my eyes up to the five senses or the multiple senses, because I believe we have more than five senses actually in how we understand and interpret our surroundings. So, the performative element of that piece is in cutting the shapes into the paper and repeating that while remembering the different walks that I went on while I was visiting the different sites while the bushfires were happening. I call them memory sketches. It's utilizing the idea of when you go back to a memory, it's a little bit muddled. So, you remember I was walking down this path, but then you came across something, let's say a specific shaped leaf and it reminds you of something else. And it transports you instantly to another memory of and the other location, and you then pick up the journey from there. And so, the piece of paper becomes this memory sketch of all the different walks I've done across that six-month period, rather than being a literal map of one section that I visited. And I think the interesting part about it is that when people view it, they might not instantly know the story behind it but everyone understands that it's a mapping of something. So, people are thinking, whether it's bird migration patterns or tidal patterns in the ocean. Someone else saw snow caps on mountains, or my favourite was population densities across the world, which I thought was really left a field.
Ira Ferris: Do you feel that kind of memory is more connected to the body, rather than the head?
Victoria Hempstead: Definitely. I think, again, going to the five senses, I think when you remember something, if it's a really deep-seated memory, you can go instantly to, you know, what colours were happening that day. Was the sun really bright or was it night-time. You can remember what you smelt like or what the food smelt like. So, it's not just this visual thing or literal thing that you have in your memory. It's this culmination of senses. And that's what I mean by it being a bit messy. It's mashed together. And that's what makes it so special and unique to yourself rather than it being this cookie cutter thing that applies to everybody.
Ira Ferris: There's also a Japanese aesthetic in that piece, I feel.
Victoria Hempstead: Yes. I think my focus on meditation is really coming through in this piece. I really enjoy doing mundane tasks, something that's repetitive and I am able to lose track of what I'm doing with my body and go into a different state. Not that I leave the room or can think about a shopping list or how I need to remember to do X, Y, Z. I still have to remain really present because I am doing something with a knife, and I don't want to make the wrong cut. Because quite often I'd get to the point where I want to make the reverse cut. And so, I do have to remain really present. But I suppose that state is called 'flow', that everyone is trying to achieve. So, I think that's where the Japanese element comes in; being able to sit with yourself and be present in the moment.
“S
lowing down has allowed me to really think about everything I do with purpose; why I am doing it. In the current climate that we live in, we no longer value slowing down. We no longer value not knowing something and then taking time to make that discovery within ourselves.”
(image courtesy of Victoria Hempstead)
Ira Ferris: Is there room for failure in your practice? Or mistakes?
Victoria Hempstead: I think so. I think the work in itself will be a failure at some point. I mean, failure by definition means different things, but the works, ... I don't really know how long they're going to last, especially the metal ones. Mathematically, I can think about it from an engineering standpoint and quantify it into a number of 150 years. But best thing about it is that I don't know, and I don't have any control over it. And eventually the work won't exist. And so, it needs to be appreciated in this present moment in time. And with the paperwork, it's not any different. You know, paper is terrible to archive. It will also disintegrate over time. And the piece is so large and difficult to frame. So that also kind of works in contradiction to the archive and the idea of preservation. So, I think without it being the core of my practice, failure is a natural thing that I like to build into what I'm making.
Ira Ferris: But in a way it's not failure if you are allowing for the failure to be part of the process.
Victoria Hempstead: I suppose, it's seeing failure as a really positive thing, rather than having those negative connotations of being 'less than' or 'less value'.
Ira Ferris: Yeah. I've asked similar question around failure and mistakes to Swedish artist Fanny Hellgren who also works with the agency of materials and she said: "A lot of work is a search. I try not to have judgmental ideas because sometimes you could have a surprising outcome."
Victoria Hempstead: So true, yeah. Finding the metal and that process was a mistake in the first place. It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't meant to happen as such. It wasn't planned. So, I think it's really important to leave room for failure or the accident and not get too attached to it emotionally but be able to remain optimistic and see the positives in it. And like she says, in being able to keep the judgment away, what can be discovered?
Ira Ferris: Is the scale important to you?
Victoria Hempstead: Well, I struggle to make small artwork. I also struggle to make artwork that's light. The paperwork is my first light artwork ever. Because generally I make work that I can't even pick up myself. It's generally a two-person job. But I think scale has this ability to engulf the viewer. And it's a sensation that I really enjoy when I come into contact with a piece that just seems to kind of overpower me in some way. I really like that. And size does play into it at times. But it's something I'm actually working on now, is how to continue that sensation with small works. How can a small work create an environment that takes ownership of more space than it actually occupies?
Ira Ferris: Yeah, large works relate to the body; scale does that to us. Which is why it is really important to experience your works physically. Which again, made me think about the times we're in, where so much is going onto Instagram or screens. But now you also said that you're exploring the ways that smaller pieces can have that visceral effect. Is that because of this transition into screen-based culture?
Victoria Hempstead: No, I wouldn't have connected it to that. Maybe on some subconscious level. But no, the reasons is that this is a true challenge for me because I do naturally gravitate to making bigger objects and so confining myself to a smaller space, I am looking at what other discoveries can be made. Because I have gotten to this point with the metal work where I have the recipe, I understand the practice of how I make them. It's now time to push it. And where can I go with it, to take it to its new ideation. And so, I think scale is a very instant way to change the object entirely. You know, rather than being a flat surface, which it is now, does it become a three-dimensional piece but it's much smaller. Does it become something which is projected? I really like the aesthetic of using projectors and projecting images onto objects in a room, the different shadows that are created. So that's just something, ... Again, going back to the play. It's something new to play with and that's really important for me.
Ira Ferris: Like a new obstacle to overcome?
Victoria Hempstead: Exactly. Yeah, a new thing to figure out.
Ira Ferris: How important is the presentation of the work in the whole process; the way the works are displayed?
Victoria Hempstead: It's really important. I think the installation of the work is as important as the work itself. The environment of how it's viewed, how it's seen is so vital. With the exhibition that I just did, there's three very different elements in it. There's metalworks, there's paper, and there's also these sculptural pieces which sit dispersed throughout the room at random. But they all talk to each other and they all need each other to convey this environment. And so, I think naturally what I always try and do is whatever space I'm given, if I have the space before creating the work, is to think about how those objects will sit in that space. Because I find the room is almost this other object that I can play with and it can speak to the pieces. Is it a tension point? Is it a complementary part to it? Or is it this invisible aspect that no one perceives, the walls kind of fall away when you see the work? And so, yeah. The space they're in and the installation is something I spend a lot of time on.
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The installation of the work is as important as the work itself. The environment of how it's viewed, how it's seen is so vital. The room is almost this other object that I can play with and it can speak to the pieces. Is it a tension point? Is it a complementary part to it? Or is it this invisible aspect that no one perceives, the walls kind of fall away when you see the work?”
(image courtesy of Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert; photography by Simon Hewson)
Ira Ferris: You spoke a bit about different interpretations that you have received for your work. Do you find these moments of talking about your practice with others useful or does it take something away from the work, when it's spoken about too much?
Victoria Hempstead: Um, I think up until recently, I really struggled to talk about my work and I felt that I was never able to verbalize the true extent of the ideas that were taking place in my head. And so, for me, talking and communication has been a good practice to share those more secret elements of my methodologies and my work with others. And again, it allows for that community aspect of someone explaining the work but then someone else having a completely different interpretation of it. And that then gives me a new understanding of my work. So, I don't think of it as a negative because I do think there's so much to be gained from sharing it with others. I'm in a really great studio space with seven other artists and we give each other time to talk about our works. And quite often I won't even know or understand what I'm trying to convey in the work. And then someone will come by with a cup of tea and then we'll start talking and I'll make realizations in the conversation. And it will be: that's of course what I'm thinking about. But it took that moment of sharing it with someone else to discover it for myself.
Ira Ferris: Is there a period in the process of making a body of work that maybe it's too soon to start sharing? Because you spoke about receiving other people's interpretations, so are there moments when it's maybe just a bit too fragile to give it to the world in that way?
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, I think so. I wouldn't necessarily be able to pinpoint what time that is, but I think every artist knows when it's still too fragile to share and it still just needs more time in the studio or more time spent thinking about it before talking to anyone else. Because otherwise, that outward influence becomes too dominant in what the piece becomes. Not always, but potentially it could be influencing it in a way which steps away from what it was trying to say, and you didn't give it enough time to get to that point. So again, not rushing through the process. I think some works come instantly and happen really quickly and then other pieces take a really long time. The paperwork, for instance. The cutting was something that I did in 2012. I just did it on one piece of paper and I've had that piece for this whole time, for these eight years. But the concept of what that was, only really connected now. And so, in my practice I'll touch on something, but it doesn't necessarily become an object or a thing or a clear thought until much later down the track.
Ira Ferris: Yeah, that's why I'm also wondering how useful is it to keep a diary of sorts, to jot down the ideas. In the post in relation to Mendieta, you referred to a diary entry. So, you keep diaries?
Victoria Hempstead: I do keep diaries. Yeah, I'm a notebook nut-case. I generally carry two notebooks on me most times. One is for lists, just keeping track of my memory. My memory is not very good. And so, I write things down constantly because I know I'm going to forget them. But they are very disorganized. I mean, no one else would be able to decipher those books. I also take voice memos on my phone and I also jot things down on my computer. But I really don't like it on technology. It doesn't actually go anywhere, just stays on the screen and it doesn't go anywhere. So, I find that if I put it down in a notebook, it continues to stay with me at all times. So, I've got a whole stack out in the spare room and I come across them just when I need. It's just interesting how sometimes you come across something exactly when you need it and I'll flick through it and go, oh that's right!, and just revisit that.
Ira Ferris: I have notebooks as well, which I also prefer to typing on the computer or a phone because there is something to that process; to that bodily experience of touching the pen to the paper. I can't really pinpoint what it is or explain it, but there is something deeper in a way. Perhaps it's because of the time. The time that you spend with it is longer, when you write on paper as opposed to screen. And there is this tactile element.
Victoria Hempstead: Yeah, yeah, I agree. When writing things down, like you said, it is slower than typing. So, you stay with the idea for a bit longer. And I've always found that when I write things down, I can encapsulate what I'm talking about so much better than I can when I'm speaking. And I think it's the ability to put it down and have a memory of it and then go back to it and go, was that what I was trying to say? Or do I scratch through it and then have another go? And I think with keeping a notebook, ... It's one of the things that I am really deeply connected to. It's a memory of you in a written form.
Ira Ferris: Do you have a dream diary?
Victoria Hempstead: I used to, but I don’t any more. But I should, I should star that again. There are so many new habits that I want to introduce but haven’t got around to them. I’m really struggling in Covid to really find the energy, because there is so much time to do all these things I almost don’t know where to put them in mu day. Cause you kind of wake up and you are like I could do it now or I could do it later in the day. I am currently not working at a job; I’m just practicing my work and so the flexibility of that is kind of positive and the negative. But, yeah it’s at the top of the list of coming back into something that I do.
Ira Ferris: And you find dreams inspiring for your practice; they inform your ideas?
Victoria Hempstead: Yes, sometimes they are the work. I wake up and I had a dream about the work. I made this work with the metal piece and they were counterbalanced of these rocks and it was a dream I had of walking in this twilight landscape and then finding this stones and the stones were really warm and felt like bodies and had these pools of water next to them.
Ira Ferris: Where would you like to take your practice next, or is it too soon to ask?
Victoria Hempstead: No, I think it's what I'm thinking about a lot right now. So the next thing I'm going to be doing is actually an oil painting and it kind of goes back to that 'make a crap art work' sort of thing. And even though it's not going to necessarily be crap artwork, it's just breaking the repetitiveness of what I would normally do. And I'm not going to do anything with this oil painting. It's just going to be something I've been planning for a while, just to have fun with it and do that. And I'm going to give myself probably a month to just do it and have a great time. And then, yeah, after that, begin to continue the exploration into the smaller pieces. I really would like to see if I can take the metal work back to a three dimensional form rather than it being a flat surface. I would consider myself a sculptor and so I always kind of enjoy bringing it back to this object piece, which is a presence in the room. Because I feel sometimes with things that hang on walls, they feel really static. If there's an object sitting in a room, it just looks like another being in the space. So, yeah, I will just have a good play with that.
ALL IMAGES USED ABOVE ARE VICTORIA’S ARTWORKS (images 1, 2, 3 are details from the full work).
YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VICTORIA’S PRACTICE VIA HER:
WEBSITE: victoriahempstead.com
INSTAGRAM: @victoriahempstead