Yes, it seems I have neglected my blogging duties over the past few weeks…Not taht I have been absent from doing work of course!
I’ve been to Nottingham to visit the British Art Show Nottingham 7, which I was very enjoyable, it was good to get out in to the real world of real artists, as opposed to being stuck with my art in my head, I find I tend to get a little myopic if this happens over a length of time!
One artist at Nottingham who struck me with her work was Karla Black, in particularly her piece titled “There can be no arguments”, this consisted of a sheet of thin plastic sheeting to which she had applied a pink tinged chalky surface treatment to. From what I could make out it was made up of plaster powder and powdered paint, this was then suspended from the ceiling with cotton thread, twisting and stretched to form some interesting shapes. I like the way suspended art works occupy the space around them.
So, back to my practical work, refreshes and inspired. The work I have been doing has come to some resolutions over the past week or two. It will consist of pape mache face casts which are incorporated in to the thin muslin cloth, suspended and repeated on approximately 8-12 figures. Further experiments with string to suggest the shape of a figure have been tried quiet successfully, so I might carry on experimenting with this material.
I have tried wrapping two thickness of string around wire to form strange and interesting shapes, I am hoping to expand this work into something I can use as a sculpture in its own right. In fact this morning I have been casting some plaster blocks and cylinders to see how the string sculptures can work with them…
I’ve spent a lot of time this week, as I say in my title for this post, undergoing “trial and error” on my practical project. For the most part it has gone fine, I’m coming to some conclusions about the materials I want this piece to use, the lightness and paper like quality of the tissue paper worked very well, the resin I left t University to set ( not sure it will give the right feel for the piece) the main problem with the resin I think will be the “plastic” type finish (not something I wanted). Now when I look back on the work I’ve done in plaster it appears too heavy to me, too solid even when it’s cast as a thin shell.
I’ve been experimenting at trying to stiffen the fabric of the muslin enough to hold a shape, I bought some starch earlier today but I found it didn’t offer enough rigidity, the best seems to be PVA glue, but it seems to still have a flexibility to it which will distort the shape.
Other trials include incorporating the face in with the fabric sheet, added some shapes to represent breasts and pinned it up on the wall. I actually like the results, needs a little more refining I like the whispyness and ethereal feel…could look interesting hanging in the room , repeat is something I am still wanting to do with this, so I’m thinking of perhaps 12 or so of these “figure” floating , suspended in the middle of the room.
The latest, mixed media sculpture.
Eva Hesse is an artist I’ve recently come across, I seem to be establishing a theme and a taste for female artists… I would hate to fall into the feminist category of artists as that’s not what I’m about! The drawing of inspiration from the female body and psyche is an obvious and intimate point of reference for me and intrinsically connected with my life experience.
Eva Hesse was renound for her innovative approach to her work and her use of non traditional materials in her sculpture, she is viewed as one of the most innovative artists of the postwar scene. She was born in Germany in 1936 and died at the young age of 34 from brain cancer. Her use of materials is what really grabbed me when I first some images of her work, I am trying to satisfy something in me which has been “bugging” me for a while and that is the use of alternative materials, I am in fact going to cast some images of the face in a cheesecloth and resin ( something Hesse has used) before I found her art work, now I’m enthused and inspired to look at her presentation of work, the use of materials and the construct behind the work. I want to embody a real sence of vulnerability and fragility in to this semesters work…something which resonates with me at this moment in my life. Ephemeral, translucent and transparent are all terms and a language I want to create my work around.
I had earmarked today as a reading day but with the temptation of the face mask sitting on the side in the kitchen waiting to be de-moulded, guess what option won? Yes, the face mask…so after my trip into Uni yesterday I came home with the face in a block of mould-max, it was torture to be honest as I couldn’t unearth it last night, had to wait until today to give the mould-max chance to set! I am very impatient with this sort of thing, so I did very well not to fiddle with it too soon.
It came away beautifully, a nice mould, I was a little worried as there were a lot of air bubbles on the surface of the mould but, no need, I like this material much better than vinamould,
A. because it doesn’t need heating up and melting and B. it is a much finer texture and picks up details brilliantly. The down side is it price ( still waiting to find out from Rob exactly how much it will cost me).
So, there I am at home, no plaster to use as I forgot to buy some yesterday, scouring the house for something to pour into the mould. A candle caught my eye! yes I’ll melt it down and pour into the mould to test it out.This lead me to wondering what I could do with the wax to make it more interesting, as I was cleaning the fluff out of the dryer I thought ok, I could mix this into the wax! I gave the mould a layer of vaseline to prevent the wax sticking, the only vaseline I had to hand had a pink tint to it, so I had a layer of pinkish grease to incorporate with the wax and fluff!
All went in, I created a shell with the wax by manipulating it around the mould as it set…after giving it ten minutes or so to set I started the very satisfying process of peeling it out of the mould. Hmmm it looked interesting, the fluff and the pink vaseline gave it a mottled pinkish apearence…sligthly fleshy. I carried on and splattered blue nail varnish over one of the other rejected originals. Also, did some work in my studio working on some drawings of faces, quiet like the “two face” on the plaster block…interesting. I’ll take them all in to University on Thursday, start filling up my space with work.
The day for my face cast arrived!
very excited if not a little nervous too… as you will see from the photographs it was a surprisingly neat process, but a bit un-nerving to begin with,the cold alginate trickles down your face when its first applied which was a surprise for me, for some reason I thought it would be warm! You get used to it and I started to relax into it, I ended up feeling very relaxed! If it wasn’t for my neck aching under the weight I’d easily have fallen asleep!
The first mask didn’t work very well around the nose, so a second one was done more successfully in the afternoon. The two plaster casts taken from the moulds now need to be cleaned up , the nasal passages have to be modelled back in as well as the air bubbles scraped back. I really enjoyed the experience, I find the resulting masks a little creepy though, there certainly isn’t any room for vanity in them!
I will return them to University on Monday and make a mould of the positive so I can use it multiple times… then I can start trying out different finishes and materials, there are so many possibilities I’m determined to have fun and come out with an interesting result.
