Jody Paulsen
b.1987, South Africa
b.1987, South Africa
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Cape Town in 1987, Jody continues to live and work in the city. He creates indulgent felt assemblages that flaunt salient juxtapositions of image and text in vivid, highly-saturated colours. He obtained his Master’s degree in Fine Arts, graduating from Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2013.
His process of production for a single collage usually takes weeks to complete. Jody finds it cathartic to isolate himself while working on upcoming exhibitions. During this time, he will record his obsessive thoughts meticulously inside a daily journal. He then collages these thoughts into a text, similar to the way a poem is constructed. These texts are then used in his magnificent felt creations.
He uses felt as the most colourful, vibrant medium that ‘pops’ out of the canvas because of its 3D nature – similar to traditional African street vending signs.
These felt collages contain a translation of vernacular icons, clichés and slogans, combined with the iconographic imprints of consumerism. Visual cues that range from luxury-branding to political motifs and popular culture memes all illustrate Jody’s layered conceptual premise in which text plays a vital role.
The phrases and words, that appear seemingly flippant or humorous in these felt compositions, together form literary statements, that act as amalgamations of poetry, chronicles and soliloquies abstracted from the artist’s personal experience. Jody is involved in the fashion industry – he designs clothes and he models. He uses his work to comment on contemporary Capetonian life and pop culture.
His process of production for a single collage usually takes weeks to complete. Jody finds it cathartic to isolate himself while working on upcoming exhibitions. During this time, he will record his obsessive thoughts meticulously inside a daily journal. He then collages these thoughts into a text, similar to the way a poem is constructed. These texts are then used in his magnificent felt creations.
He uses felt as the most colourful, vibrant medium that ‘pops’ out of the canvas because of its 3D nature – similar to traditional African street vending signs.
These felt collages contain a translation of vernacular icons, clichés and slogans, combined with the iconographic imprints of consumerism. Visual cues that range from luxury-branding to political motifs and popular culture memes all illustrate Jody’s layered conceptual premise in which text plays a vital role.
The phrases and words, that appear seemingly flippant or humorous in these felt compositions, together form literary statements, that act as amalgamations of poetry, chronicles and soliloquies abstracted from the artist’s personal experience. Jody is involved in the fashion industry – he designs clothes and he models. He uses his work to comment on contemporary Capetonian life and pop culture.
SELECTED WORKS
— Available Works