Justin Telfer works across a range of mediums with a focus on textiles, painting, weaving and found objects. The impact of emotion and memory on the human psyche are predominant themes that Justin explores through a series of creative processes in his studio, and whilst there is an underlying framework of feelings and ideas, the final form of his work is not always predictable.

With a preference for using materials that are in abundance in his surroundings, Justin often uses whatever he has at hand, or sourced from items that would otherwise go to landfill.  Recycled material includes telephone cable, found objects, disused electrical wiring, discarded clothing and paper.  Interested in the tactility of these objects, Justin lets the materials guide him in his work – one action leads to another allowing the work to evolve, and always with the possibility of failure. The themes found in Justin’s work are his personal day-to-day responses to the world around him and are contemplative rather than formulaic.

“I like to just start … From here I let the materials, and later, the evolving work guide me towards the final form that it will take. Sometimes I will have an idea in mind as a starting point, or a memory, sometimes it may just be a colour or a material … Where it ends up is not necessarily where I imagined at the beginning … For me, making art is a release from the ‘everyday’, allowing me to get lost in my focus on the task ahead of me … It enables experimentation, and the exploration of form and aesthetics … Helps to quiet the chatter in my head … On reflection, I often see whatever it is that intuitively has led me to the place where the work has ended up. This is not necessarily apparent when I start the work, but the process of making the work has guided me.”

In one way it is straightforward, using unlikely materials from what is around him and transforming that into art that articulates Justins’ intuitions and insights that cannot be expressed in another way.  None of that changes the way viewers perceive these artworks, which may be in unexpected ways personal to the viewer.