My work questions these personal observations and forces me to look beyond the digital frame.
The Sensor & The Sensed
Human Nature?
Making art has always been a journey for me. Although sketches are made, plans scribbled on paper and maps drawn up with inklings of the destination, it is the problem solving and decisions taken on the way that give meaning to my endeavor.
Then the destination is reached…
This is the moment where the sculpture starts to converse on its own, the birth of an idea in a universal language.
Current sculptures and series’ such as Rock View, Silverstone, Grids, Guardians, etc. are all attempts at understanding and exploring the idea of “being human”.
I love imagination and finding the familiar in odd places. As a youngster I used to look up at the clouds and see all kinds of different things in them. What really amazed me was when your gaze left the clouds and returned a few seconds later how much of the previous illusion has changed, that the old man’s face now resembles a grinning crocodile…
Taking stock on my current trajectory I’m noticing myself still exploring these imaginative avenues. Is this not a truly human trait? The pure arrogance! To identify yourself in the detritus of the universe? Even on Mars we have found faces resembling our human identity and given nebulas names such as “Crab” and “Horse Head”. Are these not the places where we identify our gods, within the planets, the sun and the moon?
This must be a sign that we are conscious beings, that we have an imagination and are different to the “other animals” on this pale blue dot. Is this not the fertile ground which birthed our spiritual sensibilities?
Could this trait also be responsible for the basic narrative we call art? Seeing a likeliness of ourselves in a large rock or a tree must have given rise to spirituality, to religion. We are not separate but part of the larger picture. We are part of the universe!
Perception! The pinprick hole of our pupil sucks up all this electromagnetic radiation of the “visible” spectrum. These illusive particles and waves radiate from everything around us. How can this tiny hole in our eye reveal so much if only a tiny fragment of this radiated energy stimulates our perceptive nerves?
There is so much visual information and each individual has their own perspective. My sculptures are an attempt to discern this diversity of views. I am searching for a way to articulate through experience and immediacy that moment which gave rise to the origins of the inquisitive and conscious woman, child and man.
The lens metaphor has and still is the main prerogative to explore this notion of immediacy and individual perspectives of whom we are and our affinity to the world around us.
My sculptural exploits are reaching back to the dawn of man and how this narrative still affects us today, our human nature… with a glassy twist.
Musings on time and things to do… no April Fool!
Today is April Fools day, the first quarter of the year done and dusted. With the new day dawns a new future. I am invigorated and feel strong, for that is what’s needed to set off, on the next leg of our journey – hope.
The past few weeks have been a blurred dance, keeping pace with the constant rhythm of setting things into motion, future projects and exciting travels.
The first is coming on strong! Africa Burn. Packing details are already swirling in my head. Before we know it the road is under our butts, flitting like a black ribbon behind us.
Before then there is still much to do, as always is the case. Standing still allows moss to grow on your heels. Keep moving…
As I was saying last night at an exhibition opening to a friend, the process, the movement, motion and action of making, keeping the momentum has become integral to my creative journey. The actual object or artwork is merely the full-stop to the paragraph of doing. In a way my artistic aspirations have become part of my everyday actions.
Take this writing; I am formulating my thoughts, thoughts about my actions. Conversely these writings feed back into the loop of making, understanding my process. I’m building a feedback loop. Resonating abstract thoughts into physical pixilated words.
Lots of big words and garbled sentence structures don’t necessarily make good art.
This administrative side, of writing and editing, organising and conversing with institutions and people sometimes frustrates me. As soon as I get a gap I run to the studio to commence making. Through this madness and limited time the moments of reflection are short, focused and force me to just make, to use all I have learned before and jump, almost without really knowing how far or deep the waters are from this precipice of the now.
Jump!
Silverstone Caricatures
The Silverstone Caricatures are new sculptures currently on show in my solo exhibition, “Air” at Art Lovers 1932.
I have been combining rocks, steel and glass for some time now, consciously giving each element a roll in the theatre of sculptural narrative.
The rock is solid, strong and ancient. It is a part of this silica crust we dwell on with a history exceeding even life, as we know it, by far. In this sense it is telling a story, informing the spectator of the randomness, nae, chaos the cosmos contains.
Lifting the stone and appropriating it for my intended use as an element in a larger story I contextualise the seemingly arbitrary thing that was lying around. I personally feel that the simplicity of this act reveals the power we as humans have, to terraform our environment to suit our desires. This thought echoes throughout human history, from primitive stone tools to modern architecture.
In my latest series of exploits, the “Silverstone Caricatures”, I take this concept even further. Completely covering the stones with silver spray paint I change their ancient history, scars, surface with immediate effect. It almost feels like sacrilege when I spray them… but then again large amounts of earth are torn up and pulverised every minute all over the world. Ironic?
Drilling holes has been part of my larger rock projects which I am continuing with these smaller sculptures. Inserting and bending steel rods I use structural logic to attach my lenses.
Metaphorically the lenses play the roll of sight, of seeing or observing. But, who is observing? Is it the painted rock looking at us or are we scrutinising the rock?
These individual lenses are the pivot point on which my concept hinges. They create the portal between both parties, initiating the narrative and conversation between both observers.
I intentionally use the phenomenon of pareidolia, eliciting a reaction of animating the inanimate, giving it “life” through interaction by the spectator.
It all sounds so serious but as a matter of fact I am having fun. I hope to instil the same emotion of quirkiness and childhood discovery through my sculptures for the spectator that I experience.
Lenses and the Universe
Lenses, almost a natural lineage of glass making when you approach your material as a cold worker, grinder and polisher. Refractive qualities of the polished surfaces bend and distort light which passes through this optical medium. These qualities are exactly what I am exploring in my current journey.
The lenses I am making are more than mere cold working processes or exercises. They are metaphors. Metaphors on the modern dilemma of information overload. Our modern anxious lifestyles of sharing kitten fotos and selfies to be consumed and liked in an instant (or not) by strangers on all continents.
My lenses differ from the battery operated ones we hold in our hands. They only need light – and a spectator – to “convert” first-hand information into unique first-hand visual experiences, transforming contiguous spaces within and beyond, distorting the finely aligned mathematical radiation of the electromagnetic waves we perceive as visible light. Maintaining an intentional “handmade-ness” I explore the optical possibilities and sculptural diversity glass has to offer and emulate the origins of my craft (from toolmaking in pre-historic times).
These maquettes are studies. Although small, the spaces they capture are limitless. My intention is to make them large, as public sculptures. Their function is to stimulate awareness of the contiguous spaces where we find ourselves. To bring us back to the here and now.
This theme of immediacy has been part of my creative vernacular for many years, due, in part, to the “window”, process and optical qualities glass offers. It is just that now, more than ever, my understanding of how huge the universe is and how inconsequential our actions are in relation to the immenseness of the cosmos.
Our insatiable appetite for knowledge and fearless endeavours to explore uncharted territory informs the flip-side of my creative coin. It is exactly this Aha! moment I am after, that instant which spurs spiritual growth and makes us human.
So, I have started this blog and am at odds of what exactly to post. Do I promote myself and build up an identity to be broadcast all over the globe? What do I want to get out of a blog? This last question might be the key to my dilemma.
I want to voice my opinion. I want to say lots of things on lots of different themes. I love art. I love art with glass and think I have a keen eye recognising good art made of glass. I love reading. I read about news and happenings to inform myself, of maybe understanding my place in all this. There is so much media and information at our fingertips. This is great but also has its perils.
Come to think of it my sculptures have been dealing with mass media and our perception or perspective of the world due to its influence.
I have used the narrative of our accelerated interconnectedness by making lenses. These are metaphors of mass-produced electronic devises – our information feeding troughs, if you like. All the information we feed on can be considered second hand. Broad cast moments ago…
My lenses explore this notion. My lenses are designed to play with immediacy. They “beam” all the direct info / light / image from beyond into the viewers eye. They encourage the awareness and experience of that which is here around us right now.