Jera May
Materially my tendency is to work with something, an environment, an object, an old drawing, map or story. Making use of its original values or context I reconfigure and intervene, install, add, arrange, cast, collage, draw, film, or act, to articulate endeavours, consider philosophies and understand occurrences. Sometimes personal, sometimes cultural, sometimes cosmological.
I am neurodiverse and not quite fitting in has created an endless questioning of norms which has driven my practice. I enjoy having impossible ideas.
As an artist and an educator, I am interested in inclusive ways into drawing and making. I consider drawing as a form of thinking, a method for enriching sensory capacities and as a way of accessing the unconscious. I am currently using drawing tools, impulsive drawing and experimental methods to translate philosophical ideas and contemporary thinking on interconnectedness and difference.
Writing on 'The Delirium of Joy', The artist and writer Ambrosine Allen describes;
“I felt what May had created was a kind of ghostly archive, where real landscapes are layered with inner more metaphorical landscapes and connections are formed between past and present, fact and fiction. I left thoughtful about the idea of 'sculptural film', impressed by both the physical power of the installation and the romantic illusions of the projected media, seduced by how you can get lost somewhere in-between.”
Helping Artists Keep Going
Axis is an artist-led charity supporting contemporary visual artists with resources, connection, and visibility.