Tag: Perspective

Growing Ideas

There are times when, as an artist, you feel like you just make things for the sake of it. This is mostly true but occasionally something happens and a piece of art just appears. This particular project started with a piece of my Christmas cactus being accidentally broken off. Me being me, I picked it up and decided to pot it in the hopes it would grow. However, without any fresh soil or a pot I cut up a milk carton and filled it with soil just dug up from a verge in the garden. This seemed to do the job and it began growing but so did all the seeds and things that were already in the soil.

Feeling kind of happy at the prospect of mysterious plants I decided not to weed it and let them grow and boy did they grow. I now have a very green window box fashioned from an old milk carton. With the thought of this unexpected life I went to work on the Isle of Mull, taking one of my casts with me. On arrival I started an experiment where I filled the cast with soil from the surrounding area. Watering it and caring for it as though there were seeds in it produced a beautiful effect. Everyday I wrote a short entry of my observations and everyday there was something new.

Life is all around us from the undisturbed seeds of plants long forgotten to a billion bacteria living in a teaspoon of soil. There is a lot more to the world than we sometimes expect and if we stop for a moment to watch it, to see it growing and changing we might see something beautiful.

Day 63, Week 9, 02/08/19

”The little forest seems to both grow slowly and quickly as the weeks go by. The vast variety astounds me. The whole cast has become a tangle of fine new greenness. A miniature forest of life in a landscape of information. When I get up close it is easy to get lost in its intricacies and imagine walking among them like an ant.”

[Extract from daily observational diary]

‘Growing Ideas’ – 2019
‘Growing Ideas’ – 2019
‘Growing Ideas’ – 2019

LINE.EDGE.TRANSLATION

A new solo exhibition of works concerning line, edge and translation featuring the previous work ‘Set in stone?’. Combining sound works, writing, drawing and both kinetic and still sculpture, ‘LINE.EDGE.TRANSLATION’ aims to fully submerse the audience in an experience of the senses. Lines are everywhere; through words, images, objects, sound waves, thoughts, vibrations etc and this is a celebration of that.

 

Sat in a room full of lines,

Listen to them move, to them grind,

Watch as they form in the space,

Imagine their shape, their pace,

Where one ends                       a break.

 

In the centre of the room sits ‘Material Information’ an interactive work that invites the audience to turn the bent wire forming a live animation in a shadow on the wall behind. To the left hangs two drawings in light and cable translated from original drawings done in a performance lecture. The original drawings where performed by peers who where told to draw a line that took five minutes. Halfway through the performance sound intervened the awkward silence changing the drawing techniques. The sound being from talks and lectures it had a thoughtful tone to it. On the right of the room lies a deconstructed version of ‘Set in stone?’; it lying on the side of its pedestal. Between this and the projected line of ‘Material Information’ hangs some experimental installation work examining the repetitive and everyday action of peeling an orange and the line this creates.

 

‘Material Information’ – 2019
‘Material Information’ – 2019
‘Set in stone? (II)’ – 2019
‘Set in stone? (II)’ – 2019
LINE.EDGE.TRANSLATION (detail)
LINE.EDGE.TRANSLATION (detail)
‘Set in stone? (II)’ – 2019
LINE.EDGE.TRANSLATION (detail)
‘Translation: Red-Blue’ – 2019
‘Translation: Red-Blue’ – 2019
‘Translation: Red-Blue’ – 2019

An Island in a City Sea

Pulled out of personal experience of Environment, “An Island in a City Sea” combines natural and synthetic materials that form a changing liminal space dictated by light and the combination of poetry along side sculpture. Man and nature, two sides of the same coin and yet so looked upon as enemies, a contrast, if you will, of interests.

 

An island in a city sea, 

No mountain but to us could be,

The mound of rock, of earth, of stone,

A place we seem to be alone.

Yet all around the light of day,

At night seeps in and comes to stay.

 

 

‘An island in a city sea’ – 2017
‘An island in a city sea’ – 2017
‘An island in a city sea’ – 2017
‘An island in a city sea’ – 2017
‘An island in a city sea’ – 2017
‘An island in a city sea’ – 2017

Linescape

When given the challenge of making a booklet out of one piece of paper, I thought a lot about the folds that were needed. I also didn’t want to make all the pages the same, so I spent a day just folding and refolding paper to find a template that would work. However, the contence is pretty important and I wanted it to reflect some of my previous work. At the moment I’ve been thinking a lot about landscapes and travel between city and wilderness. The line came from Environment which I worked on last year, where I played with shadows and wire to create an animated image. Here I took the line and made it 3D through the manipulation of material. The title ‘Linescape’ incorporates the two elements that make this simple booklet work.

 

Artist Book ‘Linescape’ – 2017
Artist Book ‘Linescape’ – 2017