Dr Jac Saorsa

Specialist Subject Areas

Drawing practice and theory, Philosophy

Qualifications

PhD Philosophy and Fine Art Practice: University of Loughborough, School of Fine Art
Drawing as a method of exploring and interpreting ordinary verbal interaction: an investigation through contemporary practice
MPhil Philosophical Aesthetics: Glasgow University, Scotland
The Art of Existence: How the way of being defined and described by French and German Existentialism is embodied and expressed in and by particular works of art
MFA studies: (drawing and sculpture) New York Academy of Art
BA Hons Philosophy/Social Sciences: Open University UK

Biography

Jac is visual artist, writer, and researcher in art practice and philosophy. Born in the UK, she has lived and worked in New York, where she taught drawing workshops in the Metropolitan Museum, in Costa Rica, where she was Director of Drawing at Veritas University, in Cyprus, where she was Associate Professor in Drawing at Frederick University, and in Portugal, where she lectured in drawing at IADE, Lisbon. Jac holds an MPhil in Philosophy from Glasgow University and a PhD in Fine Art Drawing Practice from Loughborough University. She traces her passion for art back to her father’s influence and the many hours she spent as a child drawing on discarded paper in the print shop where he worked. The product and result of an eclectic mix of emotion and intellect, Jac’s work is primarily figurative but does not depend on emblematic or allegoric representation. The intangible figure emerges from within tangible form through a creative process that is both constructive and deconstructive in praxis and the intimate relation between theory and practice is a crucial factor.

‘Although aspects of what I do must be separated in explanation, they are not so categorised in reality. Where philosophy involves concepts, and art involves percepts and affects, I understand my art practice as intimately related to theory. Each complements and reinforces the other, and each influences the way in which I teach.’

Jac is an Associate Editor for the Tracey Drawing Research website and a member of the Editorial Board for Linha do Horizonte, an International Drawing Research Journal. She is also a member of the International Advisory Board of Art and Research, Contemporary Arts Journal. She has exhibited her work internationally and has recently published her second book, Narrating the Catastrophe, which is a visual and philosophical exploration of creative drawing practice.

Current Research

‘Philosophy, in generating form in the shape of concepts, becomes a practice parallel to visual art practice, which also creates at least the illusion of three-dimensional form through the manipulation of shape on a flat two-dimensional surface. Philosophy and art are here in mutual relation through the medium of practice, and philosophical concepts and art forms become interchangeable and well met on the same plane of becoming. I am a visual artist and writer. I work figuratively, shaping concepts, manipulating form, and always working at the interface between representation and abstraction where any amount of distortion and transformation can occur before, if I am lucky, I achieve a level of resemblance.’

20th century Continental philosophy, especially the work of Gilles Deleuze, along with various discourses from the fields of architecture, religion and surgical procedure, and botany provide the conceptual framework for a perpetually evolving project that is a profound and emotional study of the human form. Working on the premise that the research process itself becomes the basis for an ongoing focus on how the relation between drawing practice and theory is situated, and situates itself, within a broad perspective across the academic landscape, Jac’s current research concentrates on how an interdisciplinary integration of different applications and historical contexts of primarily figurative drawing can be combined and presented in alternative formats. ‘Osmosis’ is a working title for a current project that she is carrying out within a wider conceptual framework of ‘DisFiguration’, an enquiry concerned with how formal identity can be constructed and deconstructed within a textual framework where differences between image, word and subject are indistinct.

Principal Publications and/or Exhibitions

Jac has exhibited her work at international venues including the Air Gallery in London, the Newbery Gallery in Glasgow and the Powerhouse Gallery in Nicosia, Cyprus. She also exhibits and talks about her work at various conferences both in the UK and abroad.

Recent publications include her second book Narrating the Catastrophe: an artist’s dialogue with Deleuze and Ricoeur, published by Intellect Books in October 2011, Sometimes I Bleed, a visual and philosophical exploration of the impact of war on the body, in the Journal for War and Cultural Studies, May 2011, published by Intellect Journals, and Drawing on Conversation, 2009, VDM Publications.