I approached my assemblages by gathering a bunch of objects and materials first. I evaluated each one’s properties and combined them in as many ways I could think of. I was heavily inspired by my research on Christine Hellyar, who used wool to contain her materials. A lot pop my pieces have this idea of being inside and contained. I also used colour scheme as a way of assembling my objects as I think they create a visual relationship between each other. for example I painted the skewers black to visually ‘attach’ them to the black stocking. I was also playing around with hard and soft and the contrast between the two. This is definitely something I want to explore more. As well as this, as I explored in my artist research, is using fluidity and goo as another material to incorporate into my assemblages.
Looking back at these sculptures they have a human body type appearance. This is especially evident in the fleshy, stocking material almost resembling skin. This is definitely something I was to explore further.
Jon Duff, “Meeting Cup” (2015), polyurethane resin, acrylic, mug, and plywood, 18″ x 12″ x 6″ (photo by Jillian Steinhauer for Hyperallergic)
Jon Duff’s sculptures jumped out at me when doing my artist research. Although his pieces are quite representational, I was interested in the way he assembled his objects together, especially with the gloopy, gooey substance. The combinations of textures, colours and shapes of the variety of materials in his sculptures work really well together to create visually exciting pieces.
Karin Karinson’s sculptural ceramics address our relationship with objects and society’s materialistic obsessions. Her accumulation of objects are combined using a variety of clays and glazes, which are then melted together. Like Jon Duff, she is very interested in the combinations of colours and textures of her objects and how they relate to each other in her ceramics. She describes her work as having, “kaleidoscope-like aspects that appear and disappear at different angles and perspectives.” She pays special attention to the way in which her sculptures appear at all angels.
I was really captivated by these works by New Zealand artist, Christine Hellyar. The relationships between the netted red yarn and the heavy, crumpled material inside is very interesting. As the yarn comes together at the top, it gathers together. Closer to the bottom, where the weight is, the net is spread out exemplifying the nature of the weighted material inside. In some pieces, the material inside pokes through the holes in the net adding even more texture as the net manipulates it.
Taking my research on Iris Bechtol, I took my sculptural practice outside onto a real site: my front garden. Like Bechtol, I was interested in enhancing naturally found objects of nature, by displacing them. Below is the result.
As I was evaluating my front lawn as a possible ‘real site’, I was immediately captivated by my grapefruit tree. The almost fluorescent yellow grapefruits, quite unnaturally round for objects of nature, blended perfectly within the branches of the tree. The more I thought about them, the stranger they became. So, I decided to present them in circles on the lawn to change the viewers relationship with them. By placing them this structured, unnatural way, they become unmissable to the eye. And in these tight groups, their colours become more saturated. Objects once easily disregarded now turned into questionable creations of nature just by displacing them.
I think placing them in the context of nature itself instead of a gallery, highlights their obscurity in contrast to their natural environment.
Once I had taken the grapefruits away and looked at the photos I took and I started to imagine what it would look like if there were even more grapefruit circles. So I took my photos to photoshop and added more.
I think adding more circles would’ve been affective, if my dad wasn’t so precious about me picking them faster than he could make his marmalade.
Huge Grapefruit
Focusing still on the visual properties of the grapefruit from my living room window, I noticed that my mother’s yoga ball is a similar colour and spherical shape to the fruit. So, I decided to place the yoga ball into the tree.
By doing this, I am once again drawing the viewers attention onto the shape, colours and textures of the grapefruit by increasing their size with the use of the yoga ball. It highlights the obscurity of the grapefruits and their relationship with the tree.
By taking them out of the tree and placing them next to each other, I’m highlighting the resemblance between the two objects. I don’t think it is as effective as putting the ball in the tree, but it does focus our attention to the reason I chose to put the yoga ball in the tree in the first place. Like a game of spot the difference, the viewer is able to directly compare and contrast the two objects, drawing out their similarities. However, despite their similarities, the yoga ball is man made and belongs indoors, whereas the grapefruit is made from nature and does belong outdoors. This once again enhances the grapefruit’s strange, unfit place in nature.
Iris Bechtol, 1122 Elmdale Pl. Dallas, TX 75224, 2015.
Artist’s Note: Three Paintings makes use of the natural environment and elements as material. It reveals, obscures, and re-positions our experience in space.
Iris Bechtol’s works interested me as they incorporate and enhance aspects of the sites they are made on. For example, by cutting holes in the sheet, she has focused our attention onto the texture and colours of the hedge that we would’ve have otherwise disregarded. Framed in this way the intricacies of the individual leaves stand out, catching our eyes.
I am interested in displaying colours, textures and shapes found in nature, in a way that they become more noticeable and take on a different affect from their natural state. I want to see how the viewers eyes can be drawn to something they would otherwise miss in their environments with my site sculpture.
Bruce Nauman, Green Light Corridor, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Panza Collection, Gift, 1992.
Bruce Nauman, Corridor Installation (Nick Wilder Installation), 1970.
During my research on Real Space I was especially interested in Bruce Nauman’s corridor installations. I was immediately struck by their ability to make me feel claustrophobic without even having to stand in them. You are able to mentally place yourself in these artworks. Nancy Spector wrote for Guggenheim, “Using puns, claustrophobic passageways with surveillance cameras, and videotaped recitations of bad jokes, he has created situations that are physically or intellectually disorienting, forcing viewers to confront their own experiential thresholds.” This got me thinking about my own artworks and how I was able to make myself uncomfortable by placing a desk in my bathroom, combining two very different moods of productivity and relaxation. Nauman focuses on how the viewer feels in his sculptures. Spector again wrote, “Nauman enforces the contrast between the perceptual and physical experience of space in his sculptures and installations.” This brief is getting me to think about how space can be intervened and transformed to physically and mentally change how we relate to a space.
I started with photographing my bath. Bathing is something I do to relax and escape my work. So, by adding a desk with work and a chair into that space, I have transformed an environment of relaxation to an environment of productivity and sometimes stress. Immediately I felt the feeling of relaxation dissipate, as I was reminded of the work I needed to do, (the notepad had my notes from today’s lecture). By placing the desk in the centre, the bath becomes inaccessible to lie in, therefore preventing rest. The chair and the busyness of the desk, made the space feel cluttered and me feel slightly claustrophobic.
I decided to use my dad as the subject for my one minute sculptures as I wanted to be able to direct the making of the sculpture. I tried to focus on how the body can morph objects and vice versa. For example in figure 8, I placed the two chairs facing each other preventing my subject from sitting on them regularly. This required him to figure out a new way to sit on them. I was also interested in the relationship between the body and the object and how they depend on each other. In many of my one minute sculptures, if I were to take either the object or my dad away the sculpture wouldn’t be supported and would consequently collapse eg. the ladder in figure 3. I deliberately chose to place my sculpture in the living room amongst other furniture in figure 7, to associate the sculpture with furniture.
I found this brief difficult as it is not something I would choose to do in my own art making practice, but it was interesting to see how objects can be used in ways we would never think of otherwise.
Erwin Wurm, Head TV, 2017, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, USA.
Realise the piece and think about your digestion, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, 2008.
German artist Erwin Wurm uses his sculptures to expand perceptual possibilities of our reality and is able to completely turn our worlds upside down. They push the boundaries of what sculpture can be. His sculptures combine people with objects in peculiar and unnatural ways. His One Minute sculptures require the participant to stay in the often difficult position for 60 seconds. This means that they need to stable enough to last this period of time. Thinking about stability is something to help me with making my own one minute sculptures. The subject and the object might need to support each other in order to stay stable.
Erwin Wurm, Untitled (Stairs), Studio- K, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland, 2002.
I was drawn to his piece Untitled (Stairs), as Wurm has used the human body to mimic an object we can immediately recognise. As soon as we see three planks ascending upwards, we understand that they are designed to move us up and/or down levels. However, we know we cannot walk on these stairs as the person holding them is most likely unable to support us. So it gets us thinking about what makes a staircase usable. It also makes us question what makes a sculpture. If Wurm were to put a regular set of stairs in a gallery without combining a person with them, would this be classed as a sculpture? Or is it the combination of person and object that makes it art?
I think that the work I have produced over the Process into Image brief has succeeded in conveying relationships between materials and process. Over this brief I have gained a broad visual vocabulary from impetus, experimentation and processes of mark making. By expanding my painting vocabulary, I have been able to break away from my old art habits, thus creating interesting, exciting artworks I would have never thought I could have produced. I have chosen these five artworks as I think they demonstrate the range of painting and visual techniques I discovered over this brief and the variety of ways I have utilised them. I think that each element in these paintings both compliment and challenge each other. I have learnt how to balance the relationships between figurative and abstract, fluidity and dryness, dark and light, textured and monotoned, and two dimensional and three dimensional to create visually striking images. I realised the importance of using the colour black unapologetically, and being unafraid to paint with my body rather than my mind. I built my pieces using the painting processes I discovered, rather than painting with a pre-planned outcome in mind.
This piece (Figure 1), used to be a piece in one of my previous posts that I felt was incomplete. However after reading Houdini with a Brush, I was inspired to unapologetically use black in my works. In doing so, I finally felt satisfied with the final piece. The black strokes compliment the bright colours, the contrast making them pop even more than they did on their own. Rita Ackermann is another painter who I researched earlier in the brief who uses gestural black strokes to create movement in her work. I think that this piece does have a sense of movement and fluidity. The colours draw you across the piece horizontally and the black strokes bring you across and down the page.
Figure 2
For this piece (figure 2), I used black to define the shape of a chair. By doing the background and then adding the black over the top really shows my decision making visually and that I have started to think beyond the figurative. I did not plan on having a chair there, but when I decided to later add the black, I was able to incorporate it into my work by working back to front. I think overall the piece has a balance of patterns, shapes, colours and brushwork.
Figure 3
For this piece (figure 3), I used the cardboard and paper towel technique I discovered earlier in the brief to frame my work. For the centre I decided to stick with a monotoned theme of red. However to add interest, I used black to create line work and depth to the piece. Once again I think using black helped make the colours pop even more. I think that the contrast of the red with the green frame makes the piece easy to look at. The solid frame juxtaposes with the disorderliness of the centre image, drawing the eye inwards. However, the texture in the frame is highlighted by the similar waviness of the lines in the centre creating a visual relationship between the frame and the centre.
