Joya: AiR / Isobel Atacus / GBR

Smatterings.

2. I'm in Spain. On a residency. There’s a large black dog and an honesty box for crisps. I don’t know if a week is long enough to produce something but, the feeling is generative and restful, and – well, I’m here, and I have lots of ideas about what I want to do, tying up loose ends and letting new connections grow, but I also feel like I’m trying to de-clutter and wherever I happen to be this is a constant sensation. It’s really good to be in a studio with only a few selected things. I remember something Adam Philips wrote about clutter although I’m pretty certain he was quoting something from Marion Milner but something about how we need clutter because in trying to find something through the clutter we might find something else along the way – but I don’t have my notebook with me to note down the reference because I brought a new notebook so that all my other notes wouldn’t get in the way and clutter up my week –

How matter gets in the way of –  well                       I know where this is heading:

What is the matter with clutter is matter the matter of clutter, its mattering and why does this matter the clutter that clutters my matter it matters and clutters

 Isobel Atacus

Encompassing sculpture and writing, Atacus’ work playfully questions the fleeting and ambivalent nature of interactions that take place in the physical realm. Stretching from the physical landscape to the intimacy of the domestic space, her practice engages with the objects and materials that surround us, upending ways we give meaning to things through re-describing their materiality in new ways. Dwelling on a frequent sense of a loss of control, my work often involves a form of exchange, subverting my own expectations of how materials might behave.

 Alongside this she directs an artist-run space, the icing room. She currently live in London, with ongoing projects in Lisbon.