Untitled (Maternal), Photograph (2010) Shown in JK Rambo Jam, Second Year Exhibition at LS6 Cafe
Objects become representative of the body, the negligee becomes a skin.This has so much more presence as a bodily fragment than in the film where my body, dressed in the negligee is unmasked and direct.
Crocheted Bodies (2010)
On my year abroad I became interested in crochet and the serwetka or doylie as an object, combining it here, again, with my own body and mimicking the repetitive, interweaving process of crochet.
Consequently decided to do a casting workshop to see if this could resolve anything.
Thinking about Alina Szapocznikow's use of the fragmented body (one of the subjects of my practice in context). Separates body parts from the whole. I was previously influenced by her chewing gum sculptures, documented in a series of photographs which were shown at the Henry Moore Institute just before I went to Krakow (I was initially interested because she was a Polish artist).
In my practice in context I wrote about flayed skin. Idea that the negligee is a skin. Inscribed with memories, reminders of the past. The past me that dressed up in it. The past grandmother to whom that object originally belonged.
Chair frame and negligee, displayed with the book I made in second year in response to my Grandmother's death. It reads 'One day my Dad told me my Grandmother weighs less than a sack of potatoes'. It was something he'd said that had always stuck in my mind.The book was something I needed to make. It becomes more and more apparent how much her illness effected my work in second year, ideas from which are still feeding into my practice. The photographs show a gerbera and a potato trapped in a box together, the potato gradually sprouting, and the gerbera drooping and coming to rest on the potato, gradually dying. Fairly obvious references to life and death. Re-emerged as a result of my interest in memorial. Started to view the negligee as a memorial, equally where my use of the chair stemmed from.
Casting not resolving whatever it is I am trying to resolve. Chair a
more interesting object as representative of the body/acts as a bodily
fragment without resembling the body itself.
