'I am inspired by the rich sensations of living and dying life. The crunching of pine needles beneath my feet. Decaying leaves under the muddy surface of a puddle. The lichen that is inseparable from its stone. I believe stories are held in the landscape. I explore to understand. I understand by exploring. I take my own photographs and use them as collage material, layering the surface to build an image. I cut into the photos because I enjoy the tension of the pieces reassembled. It’s like a kaleidoscope, or a fractured lens that I twist until the image forms. I shake up the images to rattle the eyes into a different way of seeing. I believe in the power of displacement, how the process shows us things we may have overlooked. When we become aware of all the subtleties around us, we open a new world into ways of seeing' (Kate St Clair, http://stkatie.tumblr.com) 'Wallow' Ice spheres melting over canvas in gallery by Kate St ClairI have been drawn to Kate St Clair's work through her use of the freezing and defrosting method. Her introductory statement about her work also interested me as there are many similarities to my own practice methods. The contrasts of life /death, the 'understanding' through exploring the 'displacing' of things to make us look at matter in different ways, facilitating the 'seeing' of things/materials in an alternative I order to help us become aware and more appreciative.
The work seen above is an installation of collected debris and pigments frozen into spheres and left to defrost over canvases within a gallery/exhibition space. The content of these spheres eventually becomes amalgamated onto the canvas as over time the 'frozen' liquid defrosts. This is something similar to what I have already been exploring; frozen pigment defrosting over paper. Kates work contains more depth and narrative through the collected pieces within the spheres. My concerns at present are the 'water' content and the' freezing' method as an aesthetic. The defrosting represents the 'fragility' of life/materiality. She also plays around with the time aspect of the defrosting, the movement and performance the detritus within the forms play out as they move collide and fall. This is recorded through a time lapse video; something I need to think about!
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The point of Biophilic design is not the negative impact we as a society have on the environment and nature but the positive impact the environment and nature has on us. Biophilic architects main concerns are for beauty and perfection; tackling the sensory deprivation we encounter on a daily basis. If we spend time in environments where there is no natural light or connection with the 'real' and organic world we become deprived of that connection and become 'disconnected' We need that connection with the texture of surfaces; the transient and ever changing elements otherwise we become deprived of our natural affinity to sensory awareness and changes.
Imagine a life with no relation to the contrasting cycles of life day/night, life/death, summer/winter????? Imagine a landscape, a city with no brief interruptions of green vegetation or plant life????? It is always said that January & February are the worst months of the year; they certainly feel like it at the moment. Lack of light is hindering the development of experimentation with freezing processes. The days are short and the never-ending overcast days do not give rise to the opportunity of working with the daylight. Paid employment restricts the times I am able to work with pure daylight; going out in the dark and returning as its getting dark limits the documentation of processes through photography.
While I wait for the days to get longer I continue to develop a series of Intaglio prints into hand made paper using dried grasses from the summer; collected from the surrounding countryside and dead grasses that still linger in the garden. This process sustains a continued thread of 'making' and 'experimentation' generating work that could potentially be used as part of an exhibition in the future. This ice crack on the Brunt Ice Shelf is visually beautiful. It however generates an alarming reminder of global warming and the pressures we as a society are putting on the earths environment. The materiality of frozen liquids and substances are a preoccupation with me at the moment. It is the fragility and beautiful aesthetic of these materials in their frozen state that encourage me to work with matter in this form.
'Beauty' 1991-2003By using organic materials within my practice the process of decay is a constant and present process within my work. It exists as a reminder of the fragile and transient nature of organic matter and life itself. The above work by Anya Gallaccio demostrates this decaying process by using flowers (Gerberas to be exact) left overtime these flowers become something quite different from the perfect structured flower head and stem. Turning into a panel of mould and slimey substance. Having worked with flowers for 17 years as a proffession this moulding process is something i have experienced first hand. Gerberas especially take to the 'decaying' process quickly; their thin flower head and spongy hollow stem make for a quick deterioration into a decayed state. This break down of elemental materials is something i wish to focus on. It is the delicate and precarious state of not only the natural world around us but our ever increasing reliance on hyper/digital technology; the control this has within our lives and the consequences of a sudden need to have to survive without it that i wish to highlight!!!! 'Intensities & Surfaces' 1996This work by Anya Gallacio consists of a solid block of ice bricks with a block of rock salt within it. Lit from within it was placed in a large industrial space and left to melt. Because the space was colder than expected the work remained longer than intended. The salt placed within it meant that the 'melting' was unpredictable and the ice degenorated in different areas. The fact that the piece was placed within an industrial space meant that the viewer made the viewing of the work consiously; they expected, to see a block of ice within the space. This takes away the element of surprise. (Thoughts of Andy Goldsworthy's Snowball's placed within the streets of London on Midsummers day generate a real sense of surprise!!)
These points are things to take into consideration when working with materials in a frozen state:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/anya-gallaccio-2658 (accessed 12/1/17) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3617902/A-dying-art.html (accessed 12/1/17) As I embark on the second and final year of my MA I am beginning to explore the process of freezing combined with the producion of natural plant pigment. The recent cold weather has generated some beautiful ice patterns and highly visual textural surfaces. Water as a frozen medium can produce solid forms but remains a fragile and unstable material due to its reliance on a constant freezing temperature.
The frigility and uncertainty of liquid when frozen presents me with the opportunity to engage with a material that ultimately changes when thawed. The unpredictability and tension arrising from working with permantly changing material presents me with challenges but also some exciting possibilities! My visit to the RA Summer Exhibition last year has inspired me to enter one of my pieces. For practicle reasons i have been developing a small piece. Skeletal leaves, their fragility and visual aesthetical contrasts have been a source of inspiration for me for while. For me they reveal the precarious and unpredictability of materiality and our relationship with the world around us.
The excersise in the making of these works is keeping me focused in ready for the next chapter of my MA.The thought of having a piece of my 'organic' work hung in the middle of a cosmoplitan and 21st century driven city such as London in itself is an exciting prospect! Thousands apply to the Summer Exhibition........but you never know???!! 'In the lonely mountain farm,
My abundant catch I take. There is a hearth, and table, And friluftsliv for my thoughts.' The frst recorded appearance of the expression 'friluftsliv' appears in 1859 in the epic poem of 387 lines by Enrik Ibsen. The poem is the tale of a young man who locks up his own house in the valley to venture into the wild in order to hunt for reindeer hide to give to his mother and sweetheart on hs return. He then meets a stranger who encourages him to leave all human ties behind and stay to live in the mountains. At this point in the poem the above verse references the term 'friluftliv'. It signifies the simplistic aspect of being and belonging, our basic needs; food, fire, shelter, his percieved need as an individual. Although alone he embraces this loneliness through his engagement with nature. Our basic needs never change as a species but we all need human and physical contact with others. A life of issolation as this charachter is choosing, in reality is not the way to survive! (http://norwegianjournaloffriluftsliv.com/doc/172010.pd,f Leirhaug, Petter Erik) https://www.youtube.com/user/svekron
Frilufstliv; connecting to the more than human world (Gelter H, 2000) A beautiful example of 'immersing' body and mind into a vast natural landscape.......These skaters have embraced the elements and are experiencing the aesthetics of nature; connecting to the landscape on a physical and mental level. By skating on the ice they harness the ice in order to travel larger distances than walking through the landscape. This short film only captures an imagined experience of how it might feel to actually be there. In being there the sheer physical aspect of cutting through the ice, feeling the wind on your face and breathing in the environment must be the most exhilarating and thought provoking experience! In the final part of the video (1.53 mins) in order for the skaters to stop their incision in the ice is visually evident. It seems to validate their presence; their physical intervention with the landscape. I seem to have become lost in the writing of my dissertation over the past month or so, and the making and experimental aspect of my practice has been on hold. Today I revisited this video of Andy Goldsworthy and his lecture on colour to remind me that I am not alone in my thought processes and there is someone else out there that thinks just like I do!! He talks about how the colour in nature intensifies energy and visualizes the intensity of growth and death in nature. His eye is drawn to every aspect of colour through the seasons utilizing the materials found within the space he inhabits. He doesn't know what he is going to make before he gets there it is only while observing and spending time in a place/space that he then connects and intervenes with the materials. He is sensitive to place and observes with intensity what is around him. He talks about the importance of water and how this enhances and intensifies colour (something which I am acutely aware of at the moment with recent frozen pigment experiments) Every potential mark making material he comes into contact with he utilizes. He recounts the knocking down of a hare on his way home one night and how he used the blood from the hare to make work. The colour red he is especially drawn to its vibrancy and what it communicates; a colour that signifies life and death and the brutality of nature. Much of the work he does outdoors is made with such delicacy of structural composition it is extremely fragile and susceptible to collapse or evaporation. Mimicking the fragility of life itself.
Contrast of materials and colour is highly relevant to his work. Permanent forms he has made in the landscape and the elemental changes around them over the years. Cairns on a moorland, the growth around them and the subsequent burning, the violence of this action, the colours and aesthetical changes that come from this, the change on this landscape because of this, the rejuvenation of the land and the return of growth even after the violence of burning all produce texture and colour. He is attuned to the seasons and embraces the materiality of the land. Elemental changes and the potential for these actions to form marks are embraced................... My work up until the end of summer 2016 has been mostly subtle organic contrasts of browns and decaying materials against white backgrounds, I plan to embrace colour in the next phase of my work......... |
MA Creative Practice
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