Verisimilitude – Assemblage

On Tuesday our task for the following afternoon was to create 5-10 assemblages of objects that we find. I started this brief very motivated and interested to see where my assemblages would take me, but that motivation waned quite quickly and I found myself on Tuesday night having not completed this task. The first assemblage I made on Tuesday was definitely built on the ascension of my motivation.

Starting off, I made a sculpture using an armchair, a broom, and mop, books, board games, and also a step stool. I started my assemblages inside because it was raining and I could not go outside. I was also interested to see what I could find in the flat to make an assemblage.

I approached this sculpture by challenging myself to use whatever objects I either first thought of, or saw in front of me. The product of this challenge was, I think, quite successful although it does not have a direct influence from my previous site interventions.

My following sculpture was half for an interesting, simplistic approach, and also just want to try it out. The outcome of this sculpture is not the direction I think I will take because I want to challenge myself. But I think that having something simple such as this is important to have an understanding that a sculpture does not have to be busy to be successful.

It was at this time where I lost my motivation to do my work. I’m wasn’t sure why I did, I tried to continue but I was really not enjoying myself. And so I continued my day mulling over what I could do for my next sculptures whilst I tried to complete other work for my class. It wasn’t until Wednesday, today, that I managed to pick up where I left off and continue making sculptures.

My next sculpture used lots of towels and blankets as well as chairs and a stepping stool. I wanted the chairs and the stepping stool to be the connecting joints of the sculpture so that I could place the materials on top of the structure. I placed the backs on both chairs inside the stepping stool and allowed the stepping stool to balance between both sides. The intention for this work was to make the towels look like a mountain of colour. I think I achieved this as much as I could have, other than buying more towels and blankets to complete this.

The next sculpture, I made using photoshop. The brief spoke a lot about the assemblage of objects and the consideration of what type of assemblage you can use to make these sculptures. Photoshop is similar to that of rope, or glue that you could use to attach objects to one another, except it is digital. I wanted to approach this sculpture with the intention to use photoshop obviously. I did not want my sculpture to follow that of the rules of gravity, or the idea of perspective, or the rationality of scale. I quite like this sculpture, I am interested to see what else I could create using photoshop, working with one theme, such as nature, for example, to create a sculpture could be very interesting.

Continuing on from my sculptures, working with photoshop, and changing the scales of the objects, made me realize that maybe the struggle I had recently with my assemblages could have been my lack of consideration for scale. I had an idea in my mind that I needed to do something big to make an assemblage, but I realized that I did not.

And so, following on from this realization, I continued on to make two more sculptures that were small instead of large.

I liked the idea of using objects to make a bouquet of random things once I had found my starting object which was my paint tube bowl. I found that by removing a couple of the paint tubes, I would be able to place something in them. I found a vase that went with my intent quite well and then proceeded to add on some washy tapes that were at my disposal to bring in some more colour. For my final touch, I inserted some shells into the gaps of my paint tubes.

For my final sculpture, I wanted to use wire to be my attachment device for my objects. I had been considering using my metal wire for my previous sculptures but because I felt I had to do large scale, I felt that the metal would be wasted. Using the metal, I twisted it into spring-like cones and pierced them into mandarin pieces. I then proceeded to twist them into the end piece of my bread loaf. I am really not sure how I managed to create a sculpture as odd as this, but I am quite happy with how it turned out (?). I think that the consideration of materials, and what objects would be able to work for a sculpture such as this, led me to mandarins and bread. I find this sculpture to be interesting and poses possible avenues that I can follow.

I found this task to be difficult to start, but enjoyable to do once I got into it. I definitely think that I have accumulated a group of sculptures that have opportunities for further development and I am very interested to see where this takes me. I have a few ideas that I think I will try tomorrow :).