Lucia Sheppard

My art practice as an exploration of boundaries. It is a contemplation of the being both present and absent of rich in-between space of nostalgia, memory, temporality, and fragility of these connections.

I am influenced by my own personal experience of growing up between cultures; between south America and the UK. However, I intend for my installations to be a warm, welcoming and sensitive environment for the viewer to be captured in this still space of time, not necessarily attached to a specific place. Quite literally, the title ‘Saudade’ has no English translation and therefore is the base of building a poignant space that suggest familiarity and interaction, but at a distance, like an otherworldly land. It is both an emotion and statement that relates, but does not translate into the joy and melancholy of yearning; things, places, people, and memories.

To achieve this, in Saudade: an untranslatable yearning the use of raw and complimentary materials has been essential. The contrast of steel with the vulnerability of glass blown footprints (You[voce], Eu[I] and Voce[you]) as a barrier between the real and the remembered. The temporal symbolism of sand, and shadows, and lights, as a material in themselves, since they are constantly shapeshifting mediums. The surreal environment is complemented by the SUBSTATE soundtrack as a further time-warping and immersive element.

The installation is intended to be a subtle threshold of memories, and how interactions and connection are intertwined with these fragile experiences. Still Connection is a further reminder of the familiar and distant links of communication and timelessness.

My intention with my Saudade series is to create a surreal set suspended in time, that is a subtle but immersive reminder of fragile interaction and relationships we have with different places all intertwined with nostalgic aesthetics.