‘The writer Jeanette Winterson in her introduction to the 2010 Jerwood Contemporary Makers exhibition, The Making Game, suggests that:
“The life of objects is a strange one. A maker creates something like a fossil record. She or he is imprinted in the piece. We know that energy is never lost, only that it changes its form, and it seems to me that the maker shape-shifts her/himself into the object. This is why it remains a living thing.”
This energy and process of transformation is apparent in Phelps’ approach to Touch and other projects. She is fascinated by systems, codes, repetitions and what she refers to as ‘extreme processes’, where the mundane is transformed into the extraordinary.’
Extract from Touch by Frances Lord, Curator and Consultant