Jem Clancy: using art to communicate
Jem Clancy is another artist who got in touch after she’d discovered the exhibition. With her graphic style of drawing, she expands the range of art on this website. Here’s what she says about making art and connecting with others.
I like to make art. I like that art says lots of things that words can’t. I use it to make sense of the world, to record and understand things, a bit like a diary without words. I like that everyone can make art and I like that art can help you connect with people. I also really love dance and it was much the same with that, I liked and needed to do it, but not just in a studio.
I am verbal but drawing, making, dancing feels more natural to me. I struggle with words, it’s a real effort to talk especially, but of course it’s what we ‘must’ do. Art is different.
I used to make pictures and give them to people when I didn’t know what to say but wanted to reach them somehow. I’ve gradually got braver sharing my work with more people and it’s made me want to do more. Art can be so powerful! That scared me at first but now it excites me because by making and sharing I can reach out to people. In small ways at the moment, but I hope it will grow.
Everybody dances, 2020
Digital drawing
Image description: A graphic illustration with the appearance of a series of polaroid photos on a black background.
The title, ‘everybody dances’ is written as if by hand with chalk along the top. Then most of the rest of the picture is taken up with two rows of polaroid-style representations. Each shows a single dancer mid-movement, leaping, stretching, gesturing. Each figure has their own single colour. There are nine figures in total, four on the top row, five beneath. All have the word ‘Dancer’ written below them.
Zoom Crew, 2020
Digital drawing
Image description: A white square with a thin purple border is divided into a grid of nine squares. The squares contain illustrations of people moving, from sitting, kneeling and standing positions. They are stretching legs and arms, bending, running, twisting. They are wearing brightly coloured plain clothes.
Rewind, 2020
Video, 3 seconds
Click on video to play.
Description: Animated video of a person dancing. They are white with brown hair, wearing a pink T shirt and black wide trousers. They start from a standing position, facing forward, then twirl round stretching their arms wide. They get lower to spin close to the floor, then return to a standing position. The whole thing takes less than three seconds.
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