‘Camouflage Dress’ –
This was a piece I did quite early on before the degree show. It was one of the pieces I did when I noticed my collections worked well turning something which would normally be discarded into a new life. Make-up wipes didn’t have to been thrown away, they could be used as material to make clothing or paper which I experimented with printing onto. AlexandraBircken was a big influenced after researching her work ‘Repeat 1’ was one I really liked as it was tights gussets which are quite a personal area of the tights being sewn together to make a larger piece. I liked this Idea of transforming something old into something new. Was this dress an early idea which I should have left out? This question has crossed my mind several times. Did I need this dress along with the dress made from the film? In the end I felt it was important to have it. It shows this used of old waste material turned into something new with purpose. The dress has buttons and is fully able to be worn if desired. It portrays me throughout the entire dress – it is just full of days of the remains of my make-up. The fact that there are even a few eyelashes hanging on there if you look very very closely makes it even more abject than just the look of the wipes. It does look dirty but that is what is smothered on my face every morning and removed every evening. It shows routine and myself. Every wipe holding a different story for that day and they way in which I removed the make-up.
’30 Days’:
These 30 boards are to represent 30 days of myself collecting me. I wanted to incorporate a few of my collections of me altogether as one. I wanted to show that every day is the same yet slightly different with my daily routine. Agnes Martin was quite a big influence with her grid system she has with her work. I like the way these boards are a piece on their own but also a piece as a whole with all 30. I have been asked several times as to why aren’t they framed. The wipes do look like a painting on their own, but I feel it is not necessary with the contacts, cotton wool, eyelashes and hair. I felt by framing them it would take away the abject feeling from them if I were to contain them in a frame. It wouldn’t allow the abject form of them to come through. I felt by framing them it would make each piece more of a piece on its own where in a way they are but all 30 are needed to make the whole piece. I thought framing them would just overwork them them and make it not as effective. They are quite minimal on their own. I wanted them in the show pretty much as soon as I liked the collections on the board. I felt they were aesthetically pleasing like this and felt that a whole wall of them would be very striking and catch the viewers attention as soon as they enter my space. I am very pleased with how they turned out. They are exactly what I wanted; a collection of a collection of me. They portray me through my waste material creating auto-biographical work. They were measured the exact same distance apart as to follow Agnes Martin’s grid system which I researched a lot about in the dissertation through this regimental style like Hirst and his exact measurements of his collections of objects.
