Evaluation
This year my work has advanced in scale and confidence from working on surfaces to working upon architectural sites. The nature of my installation work has expanded to fill rooms and spaces which is very exciting. The scale of my work has become more important to me, which the audiences experience of the work a central thread to how it is made. As we have moved online, my documentation of my work has had to progress and has developed through the use of film, such as in the Congruous exhibition and furthered to the use of the 360 degree camera to document Transient Convection (2021). Site-specificity has become an important part of my work, more so as I have moved to painting directly onto architectural surfaces. Throughout L5 I explored the use of installation by showing multiple works at the same time in my studio space, this progressed through the use of site-specificity and making work in response to a space. I have started to work using the space rather than altering or adding to it, this means that the work is only viewable in that specific space. This adds to the audience experience of the work as it cannot be shown in the same way in another space. Each work is site-specific and can only be viewed in that space, it could be remade in a different space but I would have to respond to that architectural site, meaning it would be replicated again. This reflects the ethereal nature of my work, and the move towards the notion of traces. I have throughout my practice embraced the idea of chance, through research of the surrealist works of Max Ernst and John Cage I look to continue that through my work for the foreseeable. Although during COVID how we view exhibitions has changed to be more virtual, we still have to consider the audience when making as, in my opinion they are the central reason for making art. For example, when my work 322 Days (2021) was shown in The Waiting Place, it was shown as a virtual exhibition that one could view through a VR headset. Although this was effective to view the works individually, it was not a representation of the scale or how the work would be hung alongside others in the physical gallery. Through visiting Olafur Eliasson’s Experience exhibition in 2019 (at the Tate Modern in London) I realised the importance of audience participation and how a person experiences your work makes an impact. I researched Walter Benjamin’s theory of experience through the terms of Erfahrung and Erlebnis, and how through the use of social media and electronic devices, the way we experience art has changed to be one of passivity and more fleeting as we scroll our way through, consuming art at a much quicker rate. Eliasson looks at the revival of Erlebnis, that is a deeper, longer lasting Erfahrung. I believe that through creating immersive experiences in installations, much like what one would experience through Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life (2011-2017). That is, an experience that cannot be fleeting, that requires the audience to stop and be in the moment -that is something I have developed to appreciate and look to continue to work with in my practice.
