Julia A. Fenton, About, 1986, tempera on papier maché,
five units, each approximately
12" x 12" x 1"

Photos by John Y. Fenton, courtesy the artists. © 1986, 2001 by the artist. All rights reserved.

Many artists whose work matured in the mid-to-late '60s approach an exhibition as a set of conditions that affect and inform the work for that exhibition. This is not to say that the work is necessarily site specific, but the conditions (geographic location, architectural features, political climate, time of year, etc.) can serve as a seed for an idea that becomes the basis of the artwork, or more traditionally stated, "can inspire the work."

Julia A. Fenton's recent exhibition, About, at Itawamba Junior College developed in this manner The measurements of the usable wall space in the gallery became an aspect of the subject matter of the work. The space that About is about is a rectangular foyer, broken by doorways, leaving six burlap-covered wall segments for the display of artwork. She computed the square footage of each wall] segment, then constructed six one-foot-square papier-mache objects with corresponding amounts of paper Because of differing wall areas and the nature of papier-mache, each object is slightly irregular and a different thickness. Tempera was added to the papier-mache to create one red, one yellow, one blue, one purple, and two orange objects. Fenton wrote a description in pencil on each: "About 388.42 red solid square feet," "About 173.38 yellow solid square feet," "About 173.38 blue solid square feet," "About 34.83 purple solid square feet," "About 101.33 orange solid square feet," and "About 34.83 orange solid square feet."

Each object is centered horizontally and vertically on the appropriate wall segment. The red square is positioned on a back wall. The wall to the left is broken by a doorway, so both segments of that wall received a corresponding orange square. The front wall is roughly broken into thirds by a wide central entryway. The yellow square is on the third of the wall contiguous with the orange walls, the central third leads to the outside (green of the grass and trees) and the blue hangs on the final third. The purple square is on the remaining wall That wall is composed of doors to the college gallery, with only a small segment of usable space (about 34.83 square feet).

About is visually sparse and ideologically dense; Fenton is focusing on systems of common reference and the abstractions necessary in such systems. Fenton's piece for the IJC is, in many respects, a very traditional work of art. She has taken information about a place and massaged that information into a representation of place. This is traditional in that artists have long informed their representations of life through observation of nature. But Fenton's observations were once-removed from reality. Fenton based her work, not on the direct observation of nature, but on an assessment of accepted conventions about how space is described.

The foyer floor plan becomes a set of instructions and questions. We are given four walls, some of which are broken by windows, doorways, etc. What is a wall, particularly one on which art is hung? We are faced with limitationsÑthose of wall and those of language. Fenton demonstrates the flexibility of definition by treating the orange wall as one side of a rectangle, the architecturally broken segments unified by the two orange squares, while treating the yellow (green) blue wall as three separate segments of space. In one case (orange) she looks at the whole, in the other she looks at the parts. The decision to let the fragmented greens of the outside world be called into play emphasizes the difference of "real" versus plasticized ideals of our "knowledge."

The statement on each of the objects calls attention to a variety of points: "About 188.42 red solid square feet," becomes a multiple choice question. Is "about" referring to (a) meaning, (b) approximation, (c) approximation of meaning, or (d) all of the above? The correct answer is (d).

The choice of material (papier-mache) and method of making brings into play several interesting points. As mentioned before, papier-mache is rather imprecise and difficult to control. It does not seem to be the best medium for making geometric objects. Possibly making the objects from laminated sheets of coloraid paper would have been better. But Fenton's aim was not to make perfect or near-perfect solid square feet. The choice of papier-mache is analogous to our knowledge, rather imprecise, sloppy, never fitting exactly. Also, to have used pre-colored paper would be inconsistent with the overall working of the piece. She is dealing with unindividuated square footage, then honing this concept to fit the particular. Thus, the color additions become a way of making specific (or at least as specific as possible) which square footage the object refers to.

About and work like it is currently out of fashion in mainstream art. It is at first inspection a rather simple work, but like most of Fenton's successful pieces, when studied, it becomes a maze of references and cross-references. Because of its visual simplicity, I doubt many people will dig deeply enough to get to the essence of the work. Much of her work is conceptually tight and refined to the point that the context of the work appears to be blatantly obvious and pedantic, but this is not at all the case. Rather than being a weakness in the work, it is the mark of high quality theoretical craftsmanship.

Ms. Fenton's work can be viewed at www.markwoolley.com

This article was originally published in Art Papers, Vol 10, No. 3, May/June, 1986, pp 26-27.
© 1986, 2001 by Dan R. Talley. All rights reserved.