I have my fingers in lots of pies – arty pies of course. I’m working with the figurine in a variety of ways and enjoying shifting between mediums – photographs; ‘model’ ornaments, drawing and paint. It’s a versatile way of working but as I get more deeply involved with the processes I am loosing focus! So today I began to concentrate on one element – the photographed figurines. I am trying to improve on my photographic skills to create a more defined image. I think I will have to ask for some help from staff at college!
In these images I have run photographs through the photocopier pulling them back and forth on the glass as the scanner moves across underneath it. The distortions are random and quite unworldly – some good material to work with next.
I have just read Sonia Boue’s latest post in her blog Barcelona in a Bag regarding a chance sighting of her late father ( in film footage) whilst in exile during the Spanish Civil War
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The discovery clearly has a profound effect given Sonia’s already great involvement in unearthing information about her father’s experiences in exile and his life as a writer. In great contrast my own father’s life was simple and safely confined to the goings on of a couple of farms in Shropshire but its something I too return to in my practice to find self expression and to define a sense of my own identity.
Quite fittingly the most poignant way I can express a sense of empathy with Sonia is visually. I just have this feeling that when she spotted her father in the film footage she may have experienced an inside-out feeling ( its the only way I can describe it really) of being touched by the past – by those that are no longer with us. Its momentary but will remain as an overwhelming sensation for years to come. So in response here is ‘my painting’ given to my mother by here cousin a few years ago. It has been touched and re-worked by my great grandfather I think and the trace of him and the child (my grandfather) is palpable – I feel them – the painting is the catalyst for my current work and now sits above my mantle piece – I love it, its a mysterious unresolved part of me and I am a part of it. ( The painting comes from my mother’s side of the family rather than my fathers in this instance but I’m lucky enough to have objects from both of them to ‘draw on’ – I posted about a letter from my father earlier in the year).
For the first time I am working simultaneously in two and three dimensions where the work in both dimensions feeds into each other. It feels at last that things are coming together.
Whilst making the three dimensional representations of the figurine mentioned in previous posts I am making large scale work on paper using paint, charcoal, pastel and collage.
Creating replicas or versions of the figurine is revealing.
Over the last year or so I have been attempting to express ideas about autobiography and the past by making drawings and paintings of objects with personal significance. I am currently focusing my exploration on one particular object – the figurine in the image. This process is interesting as I map out ideas in charcoal and paint but recently it all stepped up a gear when I responded in three dimensions.
I explained to my tutor that I had never been allowed (by my mother) to hold the object as a child for fear of damaging it (sensible move on her part – I was pretty clumsy). My tutor noticed I had taken a photograph of my hand touching the figurine and suggested I explore this physical connection.
Well that was it! I photocopied multiple images of the figurine ( I had previously taken photos from several angles trying to capture its importance – but not touching it!) I found other – non emotionally valuable ornaments and covered them with the image of the figurine (see my last post).
Instinctively I covered them in a very rough way – with no obvious skill or careful cutting or matching up of the image. I scrunched the paper up distorting the image and crudely stuck it together with tape. I wanted to create something that looked rushed and made with a desperation to see an idea manifested . This seems to mirror my strong emotional reaction – of desperately trying to manifest a sense of the past. This process felt like I was re-visiting childhood and I remembered that I had used objects – played with them – moved them around re-ordering them – to make sense of real life scenarios. So here I am working again with the transitional object of early childhood. Experiencing the materiality of it, the physical expression of processing emotions. It feels very powerful as if re-enacting, and very liberating too in the way that play for a child feels completely liberating.
I have collected a few more ornaments from charity shops and am playing with the idea of multiplying the experience of re-enacting and of heightening the significance of the figurine to ‘important’ and ‘valuable’ through replication. The re-processing and identity stealing that goes on with the charity shop ornaments is also interesting – the appropriation that I talked about in my last post – there is a power in this. And I’m thinking about the parallels of covering up and hiding unwanted realities; of reinventing truths.
It puts me in mind of Mark Dions’ work Thames Dig (1999) when thousands of fragments of pottery, plastic etc were extracted from the shore of the Thames and sifted before being displayed as part of Dion’s work in the Tate . Dion and a team of volunteers literally collected things that had come to the surface – naturally sifted to the top. But ‘sifting’ is not purely an act of chance – it can also articulate the way in which we use the memory of past events, places and objects to explain our past and self perceptions. We literally sift through credible material evidence to create our own selective version of the past.
My wrapping of these ornaments is an interruption and intentional sabotage of the chance sifting process to suggest our need to re-invent past events to fit our changing sense of self.
I am currently reading Contemporary Art and Memory by Joan Gibbons
Mark Dion
During last weeks tutorial my tutor picked up on the fact that the object of fascination – the figurine – had been denied to me fully as a child due to my clumsiness. I could look but not touch I was told – and pretty much obeyed orders but did have to stroke it! The thing about the figurine is that it is so touchable – it is crafted in such a way that it perfectly typifies the beautiful softness and contours of a child’s body.
I thought on – the denial; of being prohibited – this is really strong for me and echos through my pre-occupation with the loss of childhood – as an adult; and the loss of a child – my cousin- as I explained last time.
This has culminated in a three dimensional outcome. I have taken some pot figurines which I have studied in the past and that once belonged to my parents-in-law and re-appropriated them using photocopies of ‘my’ figurine.(I’m not sure if this is ‘re-appropriation’ or simply ‘appropriation’?).
This expresses very much my desire to summon up the past – to bring to light that which has been buried in my sub-conscious – and which I am sure is universally experienced. The results are interesting – the figurine is distorted as if forced through some kind of time warp.
