Thursday 14 May 2009

Utopian Shed



My exhibition is finally over, I have presented and now I just need to document the process which is hard going but satisfying. After my uber inspiring 'Site Specific,' workshop I decided to throw caution to the wind and remove myself from the studio environment completely. I can honestly say this was the best decision i made all year, the sheds dilapidated quality made the piece more beautiful and gave the site an eerie and other worldly feel. In fact, a member of the viewing audience compared it to the wardrobe in Narnia which I was absolutely ecstatic to hear. I have decided to upload the images of my final piece as well as introducing you to the next stage of my work. I have entered a group project at this part of the module which is really exciting, I'll fill you in after these images :) enjoy!








The last image with the small dark dots are hole punches of old book pages suspended by invisible thread. In real life they look like cobwebs, my own little Susan Collis moment! The total amount of paperclips is still up in the air but I reckon there are over 5 thousand paperclips in total. The group project has really got me a bit goosepimply, we are going to create an exhibition in an abandoned building, whether that be an empty shop window, an old church or a derelict site. Our name is BOLT and we are curating the exhibition around the idea of a 'key.' I'm considering using keyholes as my own personal starting point; I like the idea of catching a glimpse of something, but not really knowing what lies behind that closed door. This group is already living the dream, we just have to make our own happen now. Take a quick look and I'll post again soon :) http://www.artistsandmakers.com/index.php?topic=artistsmakers

Saturday 2 May 2009

Childlike Meanderings




In a recent exhibition that I 'invigilated,' I was reading through a book of Utopian theory and ideaology and taking notes on Freuds hilariously out of date views when I started to wonder about personal Utopias yet again. As the basis of my 'world inside shoes,' project The theme of Utopias is one that really excites me. I made a nice collection of other peole havens and dreams and started to build models of these worlds as best I could. I had a particularly successful distopia which I created out of discarded computer parts. This formed an urban skyline which photographed really well. This Utopia is from the mind of my little brother who was 11 at the time. I can only take a smidgen of the credit :)







P.S He was extremely dissapointd that I used a glue gun, in his utopia, everything is stuck together with syrup.







Just for thrills, here's a fantastic artist whose creations always transport me to a personal utopia. Sarah Sze is where I draw a lot of my inspiration from, she is the reason I have spent over £40 on coloured paperclips, and more importantly the reason I have painstakingly twisted each one creating a mass of spiralled coloured wire. I will explain all this at a later date, for now just enjoy the transportation.












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