About
“I want to use art to convey ideas of sustainability and inspire an environmental conscience through Imagination, beauty and illumination.”
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Ever since studying in the city I’ve been hyper aware of the immense amount of resourses being used to maintain our modern human existence. Our societies aspire to maintain the most comfortable way of life as possible at the expense of our long-term sustainability for not only us, but for many creatures on the planet. In our western world we really do live in a time of excess.
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Walking around inner-city streets where factories displayed dumpster bin after dumpster bin full of industrial discards, I found materials so plentiful. I could play with them to make art, free from the anxiety and guilt I would feel about using new resources and materials. It just made absolute sense. Although over the years I have made many public art works where I’ve had to use new materials, I have continued to maintain an interest and passion for making use of waste and off cuts to create artworks. I love to implore my imagination to see how I can transform them into artworks that disguise their original purpose and form. To succeed in doing this is an affirmation that we as a society can transform the system we live in to one that is more harmonious and in balance with nature and the planet that sustains us.
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Biography
J9 Stanton trained in Melbourne at RMIT and Victorian College of the Arts in both painting and sculpture in the late 80’s. Following this, she shared studio space and collaborated on many public art works with other artists at Down Street Studios in Melbourne.
After spending a couple of years in the late 90’s travelling Australia and being involved with various activist groups, J9 Stanton arrived in Mbantua (Alice Springs) on Arrernte country, central Australia. Her artwork incorporates a range of platforms including painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, and video.
Since living in central Australia J9 has been a recipient of various grants from different Northern Territory funding bodies, and many awards in the region. She also has been commissioned by her local council and other organizations for many public art sculpture installations. She has participated in the Alice prize and had her work acquired by The Araluan cultural centre and Deakin University.
Since 2004, J9 has been working part time with Yarranty Arltere artists at Larapinta Valley, originally as an arts trainer and then facilitator. She has been integral in developing the niche practice of soft sculpture that has matured into a sustainable social enterprise for members of that community.
J9 continues to develop her own work while maintaining her investment in the success of local Aboriginal artists.
Her artistic passion lies in finding ways to comment on socio political and environmental issues. She often employs dicotomías as the lens in which she views and expresses her world.
Although having created many artworks in hard steel and concrete, in the past few years her mediums have taken a softer direction.
By transforming discarded materials through manipulation and placement, J9 intrigues audiences when presenting them in unpredictable ways.
J9’s current work explores a merging of 2d and 3d practices, creating wall art that welds sculpture to painting, as well as drawing with sculpture and installations. In an abstract 2/3-dimensional format, she is focusing on the spirituality and deep ecology in relation to the effects of climate change on land and sea scape.
