Roz Cran – Seeing Through The Eyes Of The Other
Part 3
Enquiry motivates Roz’s art. Her work is part of a process of exploration, of trying to make sense of the world. She treats it as an adventure, preferring to set up questions as starting points to explore, rather than providing answers. As Roz says, "Everything overlaps. Neither art nor life can be chopped into separate pieces. Both are messy and tangled. I will investigate some of the tangles."
Roz is based in Brighton, having moved there at the beginning of her art "adventure", to take up a place on a BTEC Foundation course, followed by a Fine Art (Printmaking) BA at the University of Brighton, from which she graduated in 2003. She went on to study at The Royal College of Art, completing her MA in 2006.
It was at the beginning of her time at the RCA when Roz, keen as ever to reach out for new knowledge, new skills, new experience, photographed herself reaching out to grasp an apple and then, fiercely, biting into it. The resulting image revealed a previously unseen ferocity, and prompted new ideas for making work which would feature Roz as the subject matter. She began to collect leopard skin clothes found in charity shops nearby and to wear them while setting out to explore what it might be like to be "wild". This was the beginning of a series of activities in which Roz would push her experience of life beyond the daily norm, adopting the identity of "leopard", or "rabbit", or later "stone" or "tree", experiencing for a short time, what it is to live as an other.
"Am I leopard? Am I lettuce? Am I bucket?
What are we? What can we become?
Are we animal, vegetable or mineral?
Can we see through the eyes of the other?
Can we cross borders and return?
When I spent days making papier mache buckets did I become part-bucket? Was the bucket different?"*
* Quote from Roz’s website – http://www.roz2.co.uk/
To be continued
The rest of this article will be posted on Projects Unedited in sections over the next few days. The project, Breaking Ground, is a partnership supported by a NAN New Collaborations Bursary (AN – The Artists Information Company). This article is part of the project. And the partners (Judith Alder and, Roz Cran) will develop a joint residency on an allotment. In addition they are collaborating in the organisation of BMPD (Blue Monkey Professional Development for Artists). The first BMPD event takes place in June 2007 in Eastbourne where they plan to arrange a year-long programme.
