“…but there is a storm blowing from paradise.” (2016) – hand-pulled screen print with collage elements by Julia Rosa Clark.

Julia Rosa Clark (b.1975) uses collage and processes of accumulation, fragmentation, juxtaposition and chance to explore and rework representations of knowledge systems, including the transition to the age of the Internet and the current state of information overload.

The title of her 50ty/50ty artwork is drawn from a Laurie Anderson song, “The Dream Before”, as well as the Walter Benjamin Angelus Novus text to which Anderson refers. This famed text describes the “storm” of progress – its irresistible forward propulsion and chaotic accumulation of debris that result.

The work’s concept necessitated an intensive process in the studio – hours of work, 2500 precisely cut, sorted and pasted images, and an initial screen stencilling phase that seemed to literally catch debris from the blowing storm: Select paper fragments from Clark’s enormous archive were exposed as positives directly onto the screen, in three separate compositions to be layered on top of one another. The next layer(s) took the form of carefully cut out, exactly placed, screen printed images of various objects from Clark’s archive. A further dimension of fine netting fragments was then “floated” in front of the picture plane by means of clothing tags.

As is characteristic of Clark’s work, the final result is a busy, textually coded picture of excess, evocative of child’s play but with a serious, disenchanted undertone.

• 6-Colour screen print on archival 75% cotton paper (250gsm Zerkall) with collage “objects” printed on archival deep black paper.
• 2500 collage “objects” were hand-cut by the artist and attached with archival bookbinders glue in the same location on every work.
• Paper size: 560x760mm
• Limited edition of 50
• Numbered and signed by the artist
• Hand-printed in South Africa
• Please note all prints are sold unframed