Place

I’ve just shown In the shadow of her gaze n.02 in S.I.T.E. at Chelsea College of Art. Each time I install this piece it changes slightly — it must because it’s assembled afresh each time working instinctively rather than to a plan. This install sees the metal rods placed close together for an intensity and level of aggression similar to the recent Shift install but with an absence of dramatic lighting. I think there is more scope to explore this potential of lighting the piece.

I spent a concentrated hour photographing the installation, and found it interesting how the piece presents regimented order from the front but a more chaotic perspective glimpsed to the side. I compromised for my lack of tripod using a chair to stabilise the camera, shooting as usual in RAW to capture as much data as possible. However, this time, on the advice of a camera-savvy expert, I keep the ISO to 100 and make better use of RAW Photoshop functionality to enhance the resulting photographs — tone curve to lighten the results, detail to sharpen the image and smooth out noise, contrast to make the image pop, and colour balance to slightly increase blue/white tones of the image. The results are a definite step forward but I can see a tripod is essential for future work to eliminate camera shake — issues are less on close-up shots but of far greater impact on wide shots — more kit to carry! However, I love the new images I’ve got that show rods and collages stretching dramatically across the picture plane. I think a mix of distance and detail shots produces a sense of the piece that better reflects how it appears in reality, improving on my previous documentation. Handy because I’ve been short-listed for Future Map 13 so need some good images for my final application!

Links:

http://clairemanning.co.uk/z_in_the%20_shadow_inst…

http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/camberwell/2013/12/12/site…

http://makingart-work.co.uk/shift-exhibition-shots…

http://futuremap.arts.ac.uk/

The next two attempts at ‘object abused’ collages:

Unfortunately, TO PATCH failed abysmally — depressingly — resulting in something than looks like a poor high-school project! It’s made of random small tears and I fear it generates something that is too busy, too distracting, and too unconsolidated with its base.

TO ERODE also proved frustrating. My initial approach was to build up to tear down, to scrunch, to worry until paper feels as soft as fabric — torn edges, finger-nail or blade eroded surfaces. This approach sounds fine on paper and I’ve managed to get it to work on one small maquette. However, the larger-scale test failed, perhaps because it became too overworked, and too detached from a process of making instinctively.

I use a tactic I’ve tried with success before – I walk away from the obsession to resolve the problem of making the piece work and spend a day with friends and new acquaintances looking at and talking about art.

The next attempt starts with preparing layers of paper, tearing them vertically into sections and overlaying them onto each other. As I do this, I realise something unexpectedly interesting is happening. Not an eroded image, but an accretion somewhat akin to the contour marks on a map, reminiscent of built up layers in Alison Lambert’s work. Once again, the simple, unfussy approach comes through! [To accrete: growth by accumulation or coalescence.] I make two small versions of TO ACCRETE, the first mounted on fabric and the second on a fixed surface. It’s difficult to decide which to make full-scale and it’s hard to portray the differences in a picture, but photographing them and seeing them from a different angle draws me to the informality and soft tactility of the fabric-mounted version.

CLOSING THOUGHTS – I realise the risk with the larger object abuse collages is their heart — the direction the materials should evolve in – is difficult to discover in larger scale, trapping me to repeat gestures and actions that have worked in the past but which fail in the now instant of making. I suppose the lesson here is that the purpose of the larger canvas is to allow something different to take place but, for this to happen, I have to remain open, instinctive and playful within the making process.

So far, I’ve tried making three versions of the object abuse collages, with somewhat mixed results. Here’s the first of them – TO SLICE – which feels like one of those instant successes that happen so infrequently — simple, strong, effective.

Random cuts didn’t work for me, but shifting to an approach where the cut removed specific areas such as dark shade or strands of hair was far more successful. In this instant it seems to me the slice operates more in the nature of a drawn line to delineate and edit.

Image choice seems vital. The approach didn’t work on another image pairing I tried but this one seems ideal as both the coloured and black and white images have sufficient details to trigger the cuts.

What remains doesn’t need to be fixed down and in the example shown here I’ve clipped it to a mirrored surface. Although this isn’t easy to capture in a photograph, this allows the paper layers to move slightly, giving them 3-dimensionality.

Use of clips allows / encourages re-arrangement and also confers the risk things may fall apart — something that fits well with the conceptual thinking behind the work. The clips work well but I might test alternative models — stainless steel bull-dog clips or the more steamlined Rapesco Supaclip system.

Use of the mirror as a support surface allows reflection to subtly pull both viewer and surroundings into the image, creating an ever-shifting reality.

I’ve been making collages with edges that aren’t fully fixed down for some time now. I’m both frightened of and seduced by the possibility they are at risk of collapse and capable of re-configuration on a whim. However, my endeavours so far feel somewhat half hearted: to date, the biggest ‘collapse’ to occur was for a minor section of one of the collages within In the shadow of her gaze n.02 to fall forward. However, is there actually a need for any element to be permanently attached? Could every component remain separate – self-contained – or would this render the work no longer a collage?

Things said about collage:

– The word ‘collage’ is derived ‘from the French word for “to glue”’ (1)

– It is ‘an artistic composition made of various materials (as paper, cloth, or wood) glued on a surface’ (2)

– Through it, disparate pieces sourced from a frenzy of material are forced to become one (3)

– It involves cut edges, distinct parts, assemblage, and hierarchical arrangements (4)

– It is ‘a piece of art made by sticking various different materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric on to a backing’ (5)

– It is ‘a collection or combination of various things’ (6)

What I conclude from these opinions is that my proposal not to glue things down distances what I make from the traditional fine art notion of collage. However, many of the other characteristics embodied within what I make link to the approach of collaging. My conclusion: the work operates closer to a non-fine art view of the medium as an arranged collection of elements.

One could argue my attachment to the term ‘collage’ is irrelevant. Why not label it as assemblage, for instance? However, for now it seems to supply an anchor point I’m finding useful for making and in terms of my conceptual thinking.

On another tack altogether, the phrase ‘the animal necessity of ruining each other first’ caught my attention in a book I’m currently reading. (7) The implication: to ruin is linked to the animal in us. Is the ‘ruining’ of the image that takes place in collage linked to the animal? I think, in my case, I may argue (and wish) logic underpins it, linking it to a palatable philosophical viewpoint, but in truth my actions are governed by the instinctual, primary motivations of the animal. This is hard to admit, acknowledging a loss of control to the base within us, perhaps revealing more of my nature than I wish.

(1) James Gallagher, ‘Preface’ in Cutting Edges: Contemporary Collage, (Berlin: Gestalten, 2011), p.2.

(2) Ibid

(3) Ibid.

(4) Clunie Reid, Artists’ Roundtable: Perspectives on Collage, (talk in London: Photographer’s Gallery, March 2013).

(5) Oxford Dictionaries, <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/collage>, accessed 21^st November 2013.

(6) Ibid.

(7) Sarah Hall, The Beautiful Indifference, (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), p.43.

I have spent the last few weeks preparing another installation-based proposal involving the use of scaffolding. Pulling together these worked-up proposals has been an interesting and valuable exercise to determine the next step forward. However, it’s also somewhat problematic and frustrating in that I now feel partially stuck until I can realise at least one of the proposals and understand the successes and failures of such an increase in scale and use of scaffolding. If none of the bids are accepted, I will need to look for alternative funding sources and exhibition venues.

However, in the meantime, what I can take forward is the ‘object abuse’ angle of the work mentioned in the last post. My intended approach reminds me of the tactics used by fellow A-N blogger and artist Ruth Geldard (www.a-n.co.uk/p/3134411), who uses a particular verb to act as a constraint within each of her pieces. The list of verbs I’ve chosen are: to erode, to fracture, to shift, to tear, to patch, to darn, to peel, to adorn, to accrete, to graffiti, to re-delineate. My next task is to manifest these abuses by producing at least three pieces of work suitable for showing in wall-based exhibitions or more contained spaces. The scale of the collages is increased to 41 x 66 cm and I intend to test different mounting approaches – Dibond, Foamex, and fabric.

Excitingly, I’ve also been invited to show ‘In the shadow of her gaze n.02’ () in the CCW Alumni Show, 9th to 17th December, the Triangle and Workhouse galleries, Chelsea Collage of Arts, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU. This is the third space it’s been shown in and I wonder how its character will alter this time?