Description
Australia was once known as the Great Southern Land – an imaginary landmass conjured up to counterbalance the continents in the northern hemisphere, as far removed as possible from Britain, the center of the Christian world. An imaginary world, occupied by unimaginable creatures and monsters.
A fascination with scary creatures and the deepest, darkest corners of the Australian landscape informed the Australian Gothic genre, spawning classic films like Peter Weir’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ and later Jonathan auf der Heide’s ‘Van Diemen’s Land’.
Building on this antipodean literary and film-making tradition, Jansen envisaged Swamp Creature as silent and still, submerged in its stagnant pond, its skin wrinkled with constant exposure to moisture and stained by dark, viscous mud. This initial concept was given form through experimentation, as many iterations were tested to generate a combination of texture, colour, materiality and form that would embody this narrative The final design incorporates an asymmetrical body, padded with thick, soft and segmented polyurethane foam. This form is then wrapped using a free-form version of the capitone upholstery technique, giving Swamp Creature an irregular, wrinkled, bulging and dark leathery skin.
Swamp Creature, 2022
Elmogrand leather, plywood, polyurethane foam, PETG
75 x 148 x 116 cm
open edition
