My pledge – Manchester Artist’s Bonfire 28th January 2011

Click for the Manchester Artist’s Bonfire site.

Details of artwork:

I will burn a red wax skull that was part of my degree show installation at University of Salford in 2009. The installation was a personal take on the vanitas still life painting tradition which used the skull to remind us of our mortality and the futility of material things, a Memento mori. I used wax because of its transient nature but used rough layers of vibrant reds to create a rock-like but visceral effect.

The installation consisted of red wax objects on a dressing table opposite a TV on static which was the only light source and its subtle hum and hiss created an intense ‘silence’. My intention was to create a past state of being, a relic of the fear and isolation I felt I had largely overcome.

Pledge:

Vanitas literally means ‘emptiness’. The skull wakes us up; it makes us feel more alive. Burning the skull will be an act of defiance against capitalism and Coalition oppression, the promise of fulfilment through buying and financial gain, manipulating our desires and creative drives to do so. I could sell the skull but instead I choose to burn it; it will be a sacrificial act. I will destroy in order to create, to make art no matter how throttled we become through poverty: by any means necessary.

The skull also represents a crippling fear of mortality I once had, although I will not/cannot abandon this fear altogether as it is vital to my drive to create. The action will be a catharsis on many levels.

Cuts to public funds will make art and artists in this country suffer, but the positive out of the negative, the antithesis to the thesis, could reconnect us with our instinctive creative ‘will’. We may become more in touch with what really moves us irrelevant of monetary concerns. Poverty can inspire, but this is not to condone the impoverishing of artists and the lack of respect this culture has for us as the cuts demonstrate. I hope that we realise we can overcome these obstacles if we maintain our individual and collective passion to create and spur each other on, if we keep on keepin’ on. I hope you will join me in the Danse Macabre.

Project Potato

I discovered a stray potato in my vegetable cupboard. I found it quite disturbing. The fur-like texture on the growths and the vein-like qualities and spiny bits are all quite unsettling. The potato part looked like the shrivelled head of some sort of creepy octopus. It was inspirational. I didn’t know what I would end up with but I knew I wanted to use it for something. I thought I would try taking a mould of it and cast it in plaster.

I knew the tentacles would be a nightmare to mould but I managed to get some tiny fragments which look quite beautiful in delicate plaster.

Dead Rats’ Lungs

I decided I would like to have internal organs inside the cavity of the rat so I made a clay mould of veins that would be inside the lungs and poured resin coloured with ink into the mould but it kept running out. It was unsuccessful as a mould but the object was quite pleasing as a drawing.

I want to have the outer part of the lungs in latex and have them breath. This will be a complex undertaking but I feel that my work is destined to be kinetic. I also intend to do some animation work with my objects. I tried a number of materials to create veins through the latex, such as wool, wire and thread. This was very fiddly but some worked quite well. the wire rusted slightly which gave a nice bloody effect.

Clay research – Germaine Richier

I wanted to learn more about clay as a material so I looked at the work of Alberto Giacometti and Germaine Richier. Richiers’ work is astonishing. This life-size version of a preying mantis that resembles a woman is so disturbing that I could barely look at it when I came across it. The texture of the piece is also exactly what I was looking for with clay. I realised I need to work on a much larger scale with the material and with much stronger foundations to support it. I will get some wood to make armatures. I’ve watched some youtube videos of people making them that has helped.

This crucifixion is so powerful. The vulnerability and pain is almost excruciating to look at for me. I am very moved by it.

How she did this cast I will never know…

Actually, I very much intend to find out! This is the first piece I saw of Richiers. These angry but vulnerable anthropomorphic creatures are so intense. Richier was certainly the pre-cursor to Louise Bourgeois.

This (below) is such a contemporary seeming form.

Dead Rat

I found a strangely mutilated rat while walking the dog around Hulme. I actually cried out when I saw it as I was so disturbed. It’s one of the most horrifying and fantastic things I’ve ever seen. It’s head was missing and it’s flesh was folded like a foreskin revealing much of the headless spine. I took some photos of it, I visited it a couple of times. I’ve grown very fond of this rat and have been drawing it and making objects that resemble it. I am fascinated by the abject… “No shit?”

I’m still trying to hone my watercolour techniques. It’s not easy. I’ve had some success but not much. Some of these are too careful. The freer ones work better but they still take a lot of work.

I decided to make a version of the rat using clay. I wanted to make an oversized version. I have thought about sound with it and can imagine the sound of rats scratching wood, like when you can hear them running under the floorboards. I need to do a lot of recording with live rats. I will approach some pet shops although it would be better to have the real sewer rats like the one I found.

I made a sort of armature with steel wire to support the clay.

I found that I wasn’t happy with the finish and the structure wasn’t strong enough to support the clay. I haven’t worked in this way with clay before so I have a lot to learn. I learnt that to dry clay without cracking you must dry it slowly and cover it with plastic and damp cloths (thanks Matt Dalby and Jennifer McDonald for the advice).