It’s certainly been interesting being involved with The Table of Contents exhibition, it’s been quite a democratic exhibition, unknowns have been welcome as well as students. I’ve been really impressed by the hard work and dediction to the project by the LSAD staff: Roisin Lewis, Peter Morgan, and Alan Keane.
http://www.limerickcoordination.ie/2010/10/19/lsad…
This has been my first time exhibiting my new work, and I’m pleased with it’s developments so far. The porcelain prints seem to invite interaction with the viewer. The viewer has to stand back at a certain distance to be able to take in the whole image and has to move closer to examine the details or just try to figure out what the image is that they are looking at. I’d really like to make an audio recording of the viewer’s thoughts and views as they try to figure out what it is that they are seeing and the differences that their proximity to the pieces makes to their perceptions of it.
Finally, all of my work for The Table of Contents exhibition is finished! I just need to make arrangements to get myself and the work to Ireland and buy the materials necessary to mount the work. Working, doing my MA part time and making work for the exhibition has been really wearing. On a more positive note though, I don’t think I have ever been so concentrated or so immersed in my work before. I feel like I’ve been in another place for the last two months.
In becoming so immersed in my work, I’ve become more aware of my interests and concerns within my practice:
I am concerned with the materiality of the materials that I employ; their potency or potential as mediums. Whether it is the pooling of ink as it dries on cartridge paper or the print left on raw clay as the print is registered upon it. I am interested in how my actions can suggest an encapsulation of an action or event.
A recurring theme within my practice is the use of multiples, structures, and repetitions. I find myself continually revisiting previous work, taking new elements and relocating them by putting them back into my points of origin.
The role of memory and the central role our body plays in our understanding of time makes it possible for us to simultaneously experience the past and present in the same moment. This can facilitate the reliving of a sensory experience. The ambiguity of the marks and images I’m using allows the viewer to project their own subjective experiences and memories onto the artwork, thereby reliving a particular moment in time.
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Working with an image has definitely helped me to push my work forward even though I felt uncertain about what the end results might produce compared to my results so far. Producing work for an exhibition has accelerated my development and it’s made me make decisions about my work. It’s helped me to realise that my work is ongoing and that what I exhibit is just showing my progress at this particular time. My early pivotal drawings were about capturing or encapsulating a particular moment through the pooling of the ink on paper and the image that I’m using is also of a particular moment that I am capturing but in a sense also abstracting to a small degree for the viewer. There will I hope be a sense of weight in the ceramic pieces that the drawings have. I would also like to allow the viewer to experience the artwork in a more phenomenological way, so I don’t want it to be too literal.
It seems that my practice is continually evolving and changing. I was quite enjoying that feeling of knowing what I was doing for a little while. It’s a cyclical process and once again I feel that I’m back to square one so to speak. It’s not unlike snakes and ladders, where you feel you are progressing and then land on the snake and go back a few places. I need to add something new that is fixed to my work. Perhaps an image or a trace of an image that is barely glimpsed amongst the interplay and alchemy of materials?
I’ve had some really good news, I’m going to be taking part in an exhibition back home in Ireland in October. I feel both apprehensive and excited at the same time. It’s a really good opportunity for me. I work quite a lot as I’m doing my Masters part time and I’m self funded, so this is going to make me extremely busy.
