This Hospitalfield micro-residency, organised by the university, gave me the opportunity to experiment with my ‘Linescape’ work and how it conveys, translates and embodies information. My fascination being in the detailed possibilities produced by line. A line can represent many things, sounds, words, music, pulses, waves, tremors, vibrations etc. and in such a simple way. I set out to create an ambiguous line that could be seen as any number of formations. Placed opposite a statue of a sailor holding a telescope signifies land. The setting of this extravagant Victorian house brings contrasting themes into play; the modern neon red of the light alluding to cheap consumerism of the city and an unsustainable life.
‘View to a Lightscape’ – Hospitalfield 2019
I introduced a second light, which was thin, blue and around the base of the statue, linking the statue to the line opposite. ‘View to a Lightscape’ changed all the way from the strong light of day through to the murky dark of night; different qualities highlighted throughout.
Sometimes its the spontaneous things we do that reignite our fascination and passion for what we do. For so long I have distanced myself from my work. The paper cast series consists of paper crushed by others and rarely by my own hand. One afternoon I found an old broken heavy-duty power cable, which I hung up to experiment with. This exploration of the object took off and I was engulfed by an urge to play, move and become a part of it. These moments of pure innocent play are hard to come by, as I have found myself increasingly restricted by my own organisation and structures.
The Artist. A person of play, a conversationalist. In meeting this object, this other, a connection is made. One body of lines meets another; the artist steps into motion. The tension is high at first, as one battles the other for balance. Cable tight in resistance to motions it was never made to bare. Lines, Lines, Lines.
Now the two are intertwined; one becomes the other in a drawing of forces with gravity as its canvas. The subject becomes lost in the object’s movements. No longer is the Artist the maker of art and no longer is the cable an object to simply use. Lines, Lines, Lines.
This non-object was once devised to carry and connect energy, but now it has become nothing but energy. What is it now? ‘It’ being two that became one. This production staged by Play, undoes them both. They are lost. Lines, Lines, Lines.
Nothing there but lines, motion, ties. Gravity bending them to its will. The Artist drawn in by fascination, loses control in an eagerness to explore the endless limits of a new play mate; neither of them were made for this. Lines, Lines, Lines.
The balance between them swings backwards and forwards in an attempt to coalesce in something actual, something that can be named. But a name to this would be awkward; a third wheel, never quite resonating with its essence. So, it stands unknown. It moves unknown, fluctuates, molds and forms unknown. And yet it knows one other. Lines, lines, lines.
Energy flows equally through it as one, the moment overtaking it. Primal is its urge to be, that drives it into life from the living and the dead; the natural and the not. Again. it paints, draws, sculpts. Yet another line, line, line. Before the chaos of the moment spins, pulls, stretches out the two of them. Their time together drawing to a close. The body and the object. The Lines, Lines, Lines.
There is a playful conflict in my work, which has become a more muted examination of nature’s sublime majesty, brought to the foreground by unnatural materials and forms within this latest project.
I find the city at night to have an eerie kind of peacefulness. The lights and colours seem decadent, illuminating deserted shops and buildings. I took these on new years eve and managed to catch a couple of fireworks from the top of the crags in Edinburgh.
Following on from Linescape and considering some of the same themes, “Connections” is an artists book with a sense of discovery and playfulness. Each disc or ‘page’ is 15cm across making this book very large and weighty. This brings an earthy, grounding element to the work, which compliments the subtle links to landscapes and the natural environment.
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.
Gwyneth Machin 