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Helmed by artists Hannah Plumb and James Russell, London-based studio JAMESPLUMB pursues unconventional beauty in its oeuvre. An inclination towards the time-intensive, the carefully handmade and the 'imperfect' ties the studio's work together. In their latest art installation titled Stained Moons, the artists and designers evoke the eight phases of the moon in a composition of light and shadow.
The images that partake in the installation are found in the reclaimed broken glass sourced from an abandoned greenhouse—glass stained by the patina of time. "The more we looked the deeper we saw and started to draw parallels with the Lunar surface—not a literal or accurate depiction but an evocation of the moon. The moon is an ancient symbol of chronology—and for us, it is an anchor of time," the artists tell STIR.
Alongside a series of works by JAMESPLUMB, this major installation takes the stage in Moments are Monuments at By Art Matters, a contemporary art museum in Hangzhou, China, from August 15 - October 13, 2024. The artists present their work alongside 29 other artists including Theaster Gates, Francis Alÿs, Rachel Whiteread, Anthony Caro, Edmund de Waal, and more. Curated by Francesco Bonami and Wu Tian, the art exhibition brings together 84 diverse artworks striving to showcase art on a human scale, emphasising the significance of mundane objects and their ability to become artworks.
For Russel and Plumb, time is a material in their creations, allowing them to evolve perpetually. They explore the dualities of presence and absence, light and shadow, material and immaterial. As passing time moulds materials and forms, the tension between mortality and permanence comes to the fore. "For us, inanimate objects have a life force of their own—an animism—that is especially present in the broken or overlooked. We relish the simple power of the beautiful and sublime moments that exist in the every day—the polarity between the familiar and the indescribable," the installation artists share.
Time is central to Stained Moons as well. For it is through time that the glass panels, subjected to lichen, algae, vegetation and weather, acquire their defining impressions, marks and cracks. These signatures of what is deemed 'decay' drew the designers towards the abandoned glasshouse, beginning to contrive a way to make people 'look again' at the material. Careful experiments with the harvested glass and the introduction of light and shadows revive the nuances of the patina further—squashed leaves, snail trails and an evident build-up of time captured in glass. "Our focus is on authentic actions and experiences of living and being. Not just the surface veneer of aesthetics, but how it will feel to use, and inhabit," Plumb and Russel comment.
Similar concepts of mortality and time-induced disrepair can be seen in JAMESPLUMB's And. Breathe (2021), an early 20th-century wardrobe with its veneer peeling away. As a fan blows towards it, the lax skin is animated while what is underneath reveals itself. The project reflected on 'decline' through a rather simple ensemble of familiar mundane objects; time comes forward as a material yet again.
When it comes to the process of making, JAMESPLUMB rejects 'perfect,' mass-produced objects. Their projects often involve both objects and environments that they develop in a way that one feeds into the other. Processes and skills are adaptable and vary with work needs, and so, their workshop expresses this versatility. In the case of Stained Moons, the image is realised through a dual process: a selective and delicate removal of the patina leaves forms spheres and crescents on the panels while the strategic stacking and combining of the plates shapes the final image.
In JAMESPLUMB's oeuvre, art and design spill into each other, their boundaries blurred, even redefined. "A table becomes an artwork, or a sculpture becomes a chair. An art installation is designed to be inhabited, and an interior design is approached as an artwork," the artists tell STIR. Stained Moons, a captivating installation set in a blacked-out exhibition space, expands on the duo's ethos and its commitment to preserving and portraying the hidden sensations of the world.
JAMESPLUMB's 'Stained Moons' is on display from August 15 - October 13, 2024, in 'Moments are Monuments' at By Art Matters in Hangzhou, China.
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