Fours on Thursdays - 'To be Confirmed'

Studio Imagery Wall

As I have mentioned before we are lucky enough to have our own project/exhibition space at UCA Farnham. Every Thursday we are encouraged to band together in groups of four and put on pop-up shows, I have already taken part in one which was called ‘fragmented’ and now I have taken part in another called ‘to be confirmed’. There was meant to be four of us working together on this but unfortunately the other three artists dropped out last minute and so I had the space to myself. Although this is frustrating as it was meant to be a group show, it was also beneficial to me as I had the space to use as a testing ground. I’ve been playing around with the idea of utopia and dystopia, thinking about different interactions with materials and context. I’m not sure exactly where I am going with my work lately, I am currently interested in sci-fi, horror and fantasy cinema, more so in their settings and environments. I created a bit of an inspiration wall in my studio with sense and sets of lots of different films that I find interesting.

Installing the piece
Photo taken inside piece from floor
For the fours on Thursdays show this week I created a large metal skeleton. After thinking about the body and its different forms and variations across species I wanted to make it look more like a rib cage but one that wasn’t defined by a species. I decided to use chicken wire to make it, mostly because it was a cheap material to test out on large scale but once I was using it I realised it looked like chemical sequencing structures, like DNA for example. It also gave the structure quite a clinical and futuristic aesthetic which I liked a lot and I think added to the piece quite well. I wanted the piece to be interactive and interventional, I did this by placing the cage in the air, filling almost the entire room so that viewers would have to manoeuvre in and around it. the idea of multiple realities has been playing a lot on my mind lately and one thing that is always related back to realities and different dimensions are mirrors. They reflect what we perceive to be our reality but in reality, all the reflect are different variations of light which creates the image we see. I placed a small oval sized mirror in the centre of the cage, the viewer has to go inside the installation to be able to see their own reflection, which is then also entangled with the strange shapes of the metal skeletal structure.

Close up view
I received varied feedback during the crit of this piece, most of which was negative from my tutor, but sometimes you need to receive harsh feedback to wake you up from the slump of bad artwork you have been going through. Throughout this academic year I have been making work that doesn’t have any real context or substance behind it. I am happy with the progress I have been making over the past month but I am also still trying to find my feet within my practice. this install was a good jumping point, letting my try out something different, and although it wasn’t successful it has taught me a lot about where not to go with my artwork.
Overview of Piece


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