Memory, time and place all inform the densely layered artwork of Jan Berg. There is a paradox in her drawing practice. At first glance, her work is stylistically simplistic; there are bold patterns and monochromatic subtleties, but through closer inspection we find a richly complex archaeology of varying layers, markings, patterns, and scribing. There is something primitive about her mark making, as though it may reveal the codes or data governing life itself. Indeed, the detail to be found in her work can be overwhelming.

Berg has assimilated a range of artistic mechanisms within her personal graphic style. In Somewhere to hide she presents a range of works on paper, displaying a unique and painstaking process that merges elements of sculpture, drawing and collage. Her methodology often involves a cyclical process of documenting her work and then transforming it anew. She manipulates digital imagery of her output, making subtle shifts of placement and colour, and then prints this out onto tracing paper. With miniscule perforations in to the paper’s surface, she then embellishes it with a texture that is reminiscent of small effervescent bubbles or strings of tiny pearls. These reworked pieces bear the traces of previous lives, creating a palimpsest of intrigue and discovery. From here, they may be cut out into various shapes and adorn larger works, or they may appear independent – in their own right – sculpted and shaped into new architectural forms.

Often her process will employ the use of doilies and lacework as stencil templates. These hallmarks of yesteryear, which commonly adorned homes throughout the 50s and 60s, provide unassuming yet feminine vehicles for design. They allow the artist to create patterning through repetition. In her major work, An uncertainty of one second in 30 million years (2010), they were used to map out the foundations from which she then built up the surface, using other patterning devices such as small circles marked out with pen and design work in pencil – akin to camouflage.

A restricted and somewhat muted palette of earthy greens and cool greys enables the emphasis of her work to be equally weighted in technique and compositional complexity. Line generates a rhythmic energy in each work, giving it a distinct sense of fluidity. The life of insects, reptiles and snakes are evoked through the unusual pattering and tactility. There is a coarseness to the perforations, each representing a physical attack into the paper, but its careful execution is not so much an assault, as it is a gentle effort to manipulate and coerce the two-dimensional plane into a three dimensional object. This attacking mechanism of puncturing the surface with a pin, ironically gives each piece life – allowing it to breathe, giving it a new form.

Traditional use of perspectives and focal points rarely governs the compositions of Berg. Rather, hers is an overall tapestry of design, not dissimilar to the intricate patterning commonly found in textiles. She creates abstract gardens through which the eye may wander, never resting on one key destination. This coverage of mark making also speaks of the artist’s respect for Australian Aboriginal artwork, specifically – an interest in the veils of dots commonly executed in their paintwork. In her intricate covering and application of perforations and design elements, her patterning calls to mind works by Indigenous artists such as Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula.¹ However, it is not only the physical manifestation of Australian Indigenous culture that intrigues Berg, but also their rich attunement to the Australian landscape.

It is an abiding affinity for the natural world that Berg articulates through each work; each is poised in a moment of growth and transformation. One such work, Flooding (2010), a fragile and delicate cylindrical structure of paper, is encoded with an Indigenous story – a small fragment of textual insight providing a mythological and cultural narrative of landscape and memory. Inscribed into its surface, it reads: ‘the water rose higher and higher, covering all the country. The people fled to a high hill but the flood rose and when it touched their feet they turned into black swans.’² This small snippet of text, when presented in the context of many more seemingly incongruous phrases, words, and numbers, evokes the sense that Berg’s concerns are much bigger and all encompassing than one first might think, given the minutiae of her craft.

Several textual references are autobiographical and associated with the geographical location of the artist’s various dwellings, her bank details, date of birth, as well as random numbers. Often embedded into her cylindrical works, these inscriptions commemorate events, stories, and moments in time. They offer clues to the artist’s experience of being in the world. By piecing together phrases and text from within this body of work, we can deduce that the artist’s world is not one entirely made up of small and ‘of separate things’ but that she feels part of something much larger and is ‘at home in the universe’, just as each small mark on the surface of her work is part of a much bigger and ever mysterious whole.

Claire Anna Watson

Published by: Counihan Gallery, Brunswick

Exhibition Dates: 17 September – 10 October, 2010