Pie Factory Exhibition - Hanging Form I

Hanging Form I in Pie Factory: The Dreamlife of Debris Exhibition November 2012

The wrapping in my hanging pieces articulates and accentuates the form, it uses the form to weave an intricate texture around it, reminiscent of clothing but also suggesting a rope that binds, punishes and constricts. It tries to be elegant and suggest the beautiful, sensual folding and wrapping of drapery in classical art. I have been trying to perfect the beauty of folding and twisting material. By soaking the twisted muslin in plaster I have tried to recreate the effect of carved stone, as if one day it could be alabaster. The skeins of muslin create lines, the cables spilling from the base of the form are lines - I can draw with these lines. They suggest tendrils of a plant searching for a foil to twine around or viscera gushing from a disembowelled body. The long section from which the torso hangs is made up of twisted coils of cloth and string, woven and knotted to form organic tumours of material - it suggests the skein holding the hanging pupae or the umbilical cord. I've tried the same form using plaster with muslin, muslin alone and twisted plastic film. The material `changes the nature of the form. There is always an element of chance, serendipity, the material takes over - it won't do certain things or it does certain things of its own accord. I see accepting this as a vital part of my creative process.

Hanging Form I detail

"the fabric always implies something that lies beneath, alluding to a "substance" that looks to be veiled, if not shadowy. A subterranean, almost carnal world, one linked to suffering and pain, to joy, and to physical and concrete memories, that appear through the outlines of the woven surface. "  Celant, Germano (2010) Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Works. Milan: Skira

Hanging Form I detail

In the Hanging Forms the suspension from a beam of wood or metal emphasises the space around, below and above the pieces. There is a feeling of fragility and temporality in the way they are hung and a tension created by their weight and seemingly precarious hanging. The effect of gravity comes into play, because they are suspended their weight becomes an issue. With the space below the weight of the form is apparent and yet it is held by threads of string and muslin.

Hanging Form I detail of hanging in Pie Factory Gallery

Hanging Form I detail of studio hanging

Hanging Forms

Hanging Forms

My Hanging Forms evolved in the studio through the combination of my unconscious thoughts and feelings, experimentation with materials and methods, and a deeply felt need to inhabit the space. My sculptural forms evolve from ideas that seem to lie just below the threshold of consciousness, in a liminoid field; I bring together hybrid elements, human, animal, insect, and vegetal that suggest ideas by association, a bit like writing poetry, the juxtaposition and weaving together of words, phrasing and rhythm to suggest an idea, an association of feeling.

Chrysalis (2012) [Muslin, chicken wire, plaster, string].

"The internal body, the abject,

is eroticised and becomes the

landscape

The hybrid object becomes a …

transformative, 'performative'

piece …

aiming to challenge notions of

fixed identities in its resistance

to …

categorisation and singular

interpretation …"

From "Immaterial", a poem by Caryn Simonson, MA Textiles catalog, Goldsmith's College, London. 1995

I recognise elements of my sculptural work in the words of Simonson's poem. The 'hybrid object', my anthropomorphic forms, which suggest a 'transformative' process, both through their allusion to the form of a chrysalis and through the process of transforming material into something else, sometimes by the use of plaster itself transforming from powder, to liquid to solid form. The form is abstract, suggesting multiple associations. I have dipped muslin in plaster and twisted it to make a rope and then wound it around my hanging form, binding it in swathes of material that both cover and reveal the form. I have used fabric as a metaphor; it contains multiple allusions: it could be a rope binding a victim or supporting a hanging torso, or a piece of meat. It could be the filaments of a chrysalis, protecting a potential new life that will soon break free in another form.

Installation with Chrysalis and Stefani (2012)

A swathe of muslin falling down like a curtain, suggestive of a bridal veil and a funeral shroud, the experience of hope, loss of love and life suggested by in a drape of material. it expresses my own lost hopes. It wraps itself around the hanging form, a chrysalis or a human torso suspended.

 

Hanging Form I unfinished (2012)

 

Muslin torn into strips and twisted to make a soft rope for weaving around a hanging torso. I want to explore the effect of using a soft fabric to give volume to the form. In making we learn: what the material can do and what it can't do, how we must change our method of making to achieve the effect. The soft muslin strands will not cling to the form as does muslin soaked in plaster. I have to find another way. The material suggests weaving, drawing into the spaces of the chicken wire I can follow the curves of the torso. I weave through and back, over, around, the material covers the wire and creates its own knotted surface. Like intestines it suggests internal organs. Winding and knotting the muslin to make an umbilical cord that suspends the form. Soft, no weight, I have lost the weight. There is still gravity but no pendulous presence, although the surface suggests the internal, visceral parts of the body more than the plaster piece.

Hanging Form II (2012) [Muslin, chicken wire, string

And yet, the long stem of twisted muslin, looped and knotted suggests the tension of weight, the pull of gravity perhaps more than the plaster version.

Hanging Form II detail (2012)

Hanging Form II Torso detail

Hanging Form II weaving detail

Sculptural Drawings

Sculptural Drawings

I made a series of simple line drawings in black ink, various views of a small sculptural form I had made out of clay.





 

 

 

 

 

I placed the drawings on the wall of the studio, intending to draw into them to make a much larger wall drawing.

The resulting drawing evolved into something that might suggest a landscape or a complex flower form.

 

 

 

White on White drawings 

 

I made these drawings using the debris of my sculptural experiments. I had carved into solid balls of plaster to make forms resembling stones or pebbles. I drew on the paper with glue and used the plaster dust to create a raised surface. The inspiration for the drawings were sculptural and natural forms I was working on at the time.