Selected and Completed Documented Works

Project Overview:

Going backwards from my degree show installation to trace my journey of how I got there whilst documenting the body of work I have produced.

A General Glossary:

- 3D objects, assemblage and sculpture. Still taking elements from previous stages. a continual process of experimentation and investigation, just grounded in more research
-2D low relief collages, and why I moved away from this.
- Illustration and paint/collage compilations - an element of interest in scientific graphs, a trace which never left.

My RemyVision TV is full of puns, such as "pearly whites for teeth", "gogglebox" as well as it being a metaphor for the TV being the mouthpiece of the age we live in, the mouthpiece in our homes that has no ears. It is deceptively (not) frail and was fun to make. I would describe it as shonky.

I wanted the TV to play videos relevant to the room as well as encouraging an interactive element. Initially, I was going to have it give instructions for completing the potato circuit to turn the light on, but in the end it was decided that my potato circuit was too much of a fire hazard so I had to leave that bit out and ran out of time to find more suitable video than just changing between which medium you want to engage with in the media player. I was considering connecting it to literal TV (buy an amazon firestick for it for example) as this would be a good uses of recontextualisation. Again, due to the last minute decision on the potato circuit I ran out of time for this unfortunately.

Degree Show Installation

video documentation link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBHPthGARzE

This installation involved an element of risk, because I curated my pieces especially for the space. I kept ideas of presentation as part of the work in mind and wanted it to be cohesive as a space. It is complex and there are many elements within it that speak to layers of research. I feel I have successfully made it playful.

Looking more closely at specific elements within the piece: these "fingertip" shelves were painted with fingerprints in mind. I wanted to keep the brush strokes visible and reference finger painting to allude to the handmade and bridge the gap between a painted wall and a personified piece of art.

I chose to base the installation in newspaper colours. CYMK to be specific. This adds an atmosphere of fun at the same time as grounding it in conceptual research

"AUFHEBER" means person who picks things up in German. I felt it was an appropriate title and reflected my process. I wanted the title to be visible within the work as it is a word that works with the work. It also adds a layer of mystery, intrigue and confusion that I like. I chose the colour red because it is a more authoritative shade of pink and a title has authority.

Michelle Foucault talked about a garden being like a carpet of the world. We can design the world we want to live in it is our home. The carpet in my room is reminiscent of a plant. It will "grow" throughout the exhibition as people cover it with their footprints. This introduces an interactive element as well as a public facing element that I have been searching for. The picket fence marks off the boundary and gives privacy to the person experiencing the room whilst the carpet (hopefully) invites people to come and sit in the armchair.

This is when the hand house was fully "inhabited" by my smaller works and when I first moved it into the exhibition space.

Hand-House

video documentation link: https://youtube.com/shorts/2vdKLA4JYDw

This was the original plan for the degree show. However, once in the space it was clear that it didn't work in the space. The space changed how it came across. In the studio it sectioned off its own space to be in and allowed me to feel invited in to its space, whereas in the exhibition space it was the opposite way round. Suddenly it felt insular and was dwarfed by the enourmous white walls. I decided I wanted to expand out into the space more to keep the feeling of inviting people into the space it was occupying. This consideration of presentation showed me how drastically presentation can affect work.

This was when I was taking it apart. I was sad to see all my hard work learning about joinery in woodwork fall away.

illuminated sculpture/plant lamp/ lamp of memories manifest

I have written about this in my professional portfolio section

In more depth:

In the degree show install, I wanted to show how the hand is the bloom of the flower - agency comes through intrsopection. I chose the leather steering wheel because it had that same pink shade and had the words "powered by fairy dust" on them which I thought was relevant. The lamp "grows" out of the ellesse sports sock, vase and pie tray.

Time Machine Experience

Link to my Time Machine video documentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugLMzTl371M

This was an interactive piece part of an external exhibition. I have spoken more about it in my professional practice section.

It has been one of the highlights of this year for me.

JUST DANCE

Integer Tincidunt Augue Vitae Elementum To Dignissim.

What doesn't come across in the photos is how this piece interrupted the room by being just awkwardly in front of the main door.

This piece was my first taste at installation, it being a small installation of sorts. The white picket fences cordon off the space as well as the paint splatters evading it's limits. I took things I learnt from this piece over to my final degree show exhibition.

It took inspiration from Herbert Read's To Hell With Culture and ideas of expressing oneself freely within the bounds of the episteme and ideas of limitations. It features specially picked out newspaper clippings paper mache'd onto a beach ball , surrounded by fairy lights and rubber ducks of various "health". It invites the audience to take on a perspective of the world of curiosity and humour. In the face of it all, Just Dance!

Jean-Paul "Seutre"

This was a direct response to my reading of Jean-Paul Sartre's book Existentialism & Humanism, and the difficulty of being aware of one's existential dread. Feeling like you're piecing yourself together but also laid bare. Curating a life but also bound by your mortal coil. The face is simply a question mark because it is your choice what you make it (this is a reference to JP Sartre's work on existential accountability and the need to find your authenticity, as well as the difficulty in asking people for advice as illustrated by the example of the soldier asking the priest and his mother whether he should go to war or not and knowing that whoever he asks will shape his decision but only because of their beliefs not because of any absolute). Looking at Sartre in historical context, you can see that maybe society post-ww2, post Nietzsche's "God is Dead", society might have felt lost and confused, absurd and full of existential dread and anxiety.

The Sofas, Monster Quing and DOCK (heart of glass)

These are all experiments in material uses, specifically using waste materials. Defying traditional fine art materials to make small hand held assemblages that question identity and the stories of where they came from and how they came about. The sofa with the Elmo material is a compilation of my favourite clothes that my Grandma used to wear.

Buddha Head

Also titled "life laid out at the altar".

I found a discarded statue of Buddha – the ones commonly found even in non-Buddhist households across England. I had been wanting to work with a hollow head statue for some time so I was thrilled at the discovery. I sawed the hair off the head and decided to carry on the religious theme and turn it into my own take on life as a journey. The materials and colours chosen interact with each other in the scene creating their own self-referential visual languages. Moving from spirit (lightning bolt shaped mirror and fire statue (previously on the head)) through more and more solid handprints to eventually dead material (a fallen leaf) (and perhaps back to the beginning again). On the wall is wire and pink wool (a reflection of the mind and life) – in a similar way that the body and blood of Christ would be spiritually revered or religious paintings on the wall. Is it all a reflection of the human spirit? The human journey?

Ultimately this scene poses religious questions for me.

Grin, this is all just one big

traces of interest in newspaper and episteme from second year on 2D low relief work, large scale though

A box frame sets the stage for a staged representation of the world at the minute. The title is taken from newspaper clippings. It also half covers/makes the bath – inspiration for that taken from the phrase “make your bed and lie in it” and the idea the stories we tell, and how we tell them, become our environment and ultimately us.

Materials experiments include: hot glue gun, nail varnish as a varnish, sewing, water colour vs acrylic vs oil vs pastel, wire, papier mâché, newspaper clippings, ways to frame a piece and step into a representation of this world, wool, springs, PVA glue mixed with paint. Suspended canvas, mixed media and extended field piece. The title was given to me by my coursemate in a collaborative discussion