25.1.21 Breaking the rules 2
More reflections for Just Imagine: Break the rules:
I’m not sure that there are the same kinds of rules to break in contemporary art as there are in church, but I do recognise that my work subverts certain expectations. I aim to deliberately provoke a range of conflicting responses by carefully selecting and combining a number of elements in my work. I see it as a provocation; I want to make people curious.
Taboo topics: I often choose subjects that are controversial and make public things that are normally private- mental health, body image, fertility, menopause, aging, and ultimately death. There’s often an autobiographical aspect to these topics, but they’re usually something that many of my viewers will have also experienced. A well chosen title can amplify my intended meanings.
Process: Knitting and stitch are generally expected to be decorative, perfect and finished; benign, private and gendered. When I use these processes to make intentionally ‘sloppy’ gestural work that is unfinished, unravelling, it provokes an astonishing range of responses.
Materials: Materials have meaning. Cloth as an unconventional medium in sculpture adds to the meaning it conveys. Traditionally, hard, durable materials like stone, marble and bronze have been used; the soft, impermanent nature of cloth, however, evokes the human form and its mortality.
The critical theorists, Julia Kristeva and Mary Douglas, suggest that there are femininities associated with certain materials linked to dirt, contamination anxiety and the abject which add meaning. I often use quite unexpected materials, for example, second hand clothing, human hair, nails and recycled leather.
Touch: Normally, in an art gallery, there are signs saying ‘Do not touch’; I often invite people to not only touch but to wear my work.
Art in unexpected places: Environments also add meaning. I especially love installing my work in unexpected places – a decommissioned prison, on a tree in a green public place, an empty shop, a disused Edwardian toilet block, in a forest, on the beach. It also makes art much more available to people who wouldn’t normally be interested, and in the more public spaces I often get the most brilliant interactions!
More reflections for Just Imagine: Break the rules:
I’m not sure that there are the same kinds of rules to break in contemporary art as there are in church, but I do recognise that my work subverts certain expectations. I aim to deliberately provoke a range of conflicting responses by carefully selecting and combining a number of elements in my work. I see it as a provocation; I want to make people curious.
Taboo topics: I often choose subjects that are controversial and make public things that are normally private- mental health, body image, fertility, menopause, aging, and ultimately death. There’s often an autobiographical aspect to these topics, but they’re usually something that many of my viewers will have also experienced. A well chosen title can amplify my intended meanings.
Process: Knitting and stitch are generally expected to be decorative, perfect and finished; benign, private and gendered. When I use these processes to make intentionally ‘sloppy’ gestural work that is unfinished, unravelling, it provokes an astonishing range of responses.
Materials: Materials have meaning. Cloth as an unconventional medium in sculpture adds to the meaning it conveys. Traditionally, hard, durable materials like stone, marble and bronze have been used; the soft, impermanent nature of cloth, however, evokes the human form and its mortality.
The critical theorists, Julia Kristeva and Mary Douglas, suggest that there are femininities associated with certain materials linked to dirt, contamination anxiety and the abject which add meaning. I often use quite unexpected materials, for example, second hand clothing, human hair, nails and recycled leather.
Touch: Normally, in an art gallery, there are signs saying ‘Do not touch’; I often invite people to not only touch but to wear my work.
Art in unexpected places: Environments also add meaning. I especially love installing my work in unexpected places – a decommissioned prison, on a tree in a green public place, an empty shop, a disused Edwardian toilet block, in a forest, on the beach. It also makes art much more available to people who wouldn’t normally be interested, and in the more public spaces I often get the most brilliant interactions!
