Juliana Capes’s work inhabits spaces in a simple yet imposing way. She uses objects in combination with traditional art supplies, playing with their meanings by artistic processes or placements to invite audiences to understand them in new ways. In her installation for SSA 2015 she instigates ideas of resources: water, air, carbon. A sweep of half-filled and graphite-smeared balloons, the glossiness of their surfaces interacting with paint and powders. They deliver a balloon wave, a swell, a realisation of water levels rising in a shiny package of planned obsolescence.
“Juliana Capes’s Aquifer is a big bunch of transparent balloons half-filled with water. Defying their natural habit, rather than float, they hang down like huge raindrops. ” Duncan MacMillan, Scotsman, 11 January 2016
