- Venue
- Headstone Manor and Museum,
- Starts
- Sunday, February 11, 2024
- Ends
- Sunday, February 2, 2025
- Address
- Headstone Recreation Ground, Harrow HA2 6PX.
- Location
- London
- Organiser
- Headstone Manor and Museum
Title Translucent
Mc Dermott, a naturalist, uses photography to gain an insight into the spent flower’s creation revealing its structure as it dries out, contorting into its sublime shape of rest. It is these subtle stages that she wants to capture, a deliberation that unfolds to highlight a unique concealment of delicate detail. Her connection to using glass as a material in her artwork started when she discovered the bristles of a plumed seed resembled it while viewing it under a microscope. She uses repurposed glass objects in her still-life photographs to create an environmental awareness, to prioritise sustainability with the hope that glass is favoured as a better alternative to plastic. Plastic degrades as soon as it is manufactured and microplastics can’t be recycled. Her research highlights the need to ban all non-biodegradable plastic, as by buying or storing food in plastic we are eating microplastic daily!
By highlighting social and environmental issues, Mc Dermott envisions a planet that shares and represents all cultures within a community. Inspired by nature; being aware of what forms the bigger picture, to think of the air that we share with the floating plumed seed, that includes the dust motes of plastic particles and pollution. Using this methodology, she uses transparent boundaries to hold the curiosity of a discovery with a recognition of reparative humanistic views.
For this solo exhibition, Mc Dermott explores the concept of Sculptural Environments of Translucent Boundaries. For the photograph titled Wild Jar she uses the layers of reflections to show overlapping boundaries without obscuring the wildflower; creating a semi-transparent effect of Sculptural Environments of Translucent Boundaries. In the sculpture titled For Life she uses a repurposed yellow and white lampshade as a globe of hope, hope for all our wrongs. The overlapping coloured and opaque glass gives it a semi-transparent effect making it Translucent. The sculpture was further inspired by a heavy-duty shopping bag that was sold and believed to be a bag for life. But now, some five years later, this plastic bag is degrading at the slightest touch and should be perceived as detrimental to the planet and humanity. The photograph titled Vast shows the reflection of an Asteraceae Gerbera in a landscape of glass inspired by circles. These example of overlapping boundaries creates a new entity that should be allowed to shift and transpire allowing freedom to develop between their fringes.
