Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present Kelly Jazvac’s second solo-show with the gallery. New Vinyl Work is a continuation of a working method that Jazvac has been developing for the past two years. The process consists of collecting mistakes and roll ends from adhesive vinyl advertisements and signage. These signs are then cut up, sorted according to colour, and reassembled, resulting in artworks that simultaneously seem both old and new.
Through her use of a material intended to be slick and efficient, Jazvac creates wrinkly and puckered objects that, according to Jonathan Griffin, London-based writer and Assistant Editor of frieze magazine, “witness a process of transformation from a rootless, dispersed and unfulfilled existence to something fixed, cohered, and desirous of our contemplation.” This new vein of work developed from Jazvac’s interest in the waste material created during the manufacturing process of her project Upgrade at the Toronto Sculpture Garden in 2007. For this project she transformed a 1997 Pontiac Sunfire into a Porsche 911 using printed vinyl graphics to cloak the old car in a new skin. In regard to the scraps and leftovers, Jazvac explored the exhaustion of the material: how it could retain the eye-catching elements of advertising - bright colour and high gloss - yet be used in ways antithetical to advertising’s aims. The resulting work, according to Griffin, “carries with it much of the previous work’s sense of pathos, of a yearning to be elsewhere or to find itself in a different form.” Here, the vinyl, a disposable, easily replaceable commercial material is adapted to make sculptural works intended to last.
The materials in Jazvac’s works are placed in roles not normally assigned to them, testing their viability for new purposes, and questioning the connection between form and function. The objects promote contemplation about the meanings attached to physical things, and the processing of messages through different media. Her works tend to de-glorify materials, situating them so that we are challenged by their refusal to impress.
Kelly Jazvac is based in London where she teaches sculpture at the University of Western Ontario. She received her BA from the University of Guelph in 2003 and her MFA from the University of Victoria in 2006. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in Halifax, Toronto, Berlin and Reykjavik. This past year she did residencies at the Canada Council studio in London, England, followed by Reverse Pedagogy Part II in Venice Italy.
 
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