Installation - Art Road

Are we losing touch with the art of making in this age of advancing technology?

Posted on 26/03/201826/03/2018 by zabihi40@gmail.com

THE PALISADES, Aluminium, acrylic spray paint, plastic coated wire & wire, 82x40x18cm, 2017, Detail

Name: Polly du Cros

DOB: April 1969

Place of birth: Lancashire, United Kingdom

Occupation: Artist

Polly works in sculpture/installation with an emphasis on making and materiality. Her spontaneous and instinctual process of being physically involved with the material means that the matter selected is exploited without controlling the experiment, to maintain an element of naivety. Current materials include metal, foam, polystyrene, plastic and scrap, along with paint. Working within the liminal space between the expanded field and sculpture works are developed within the space. She is interested in the way an object exists and is seen in a space and in the psychology of the response to it.

Polly’s rationale for being an artist is to ask are we losing touch with the art of making in this age of advancing technology.

Is it possible for me to make a body of work that questions the possibility of creating sculpture as a unifying experience which has as its cognate a parallel narrative in multiple digital sources or ‘feeds’. Is it possible for me to produce work that has a sense of unity.

Underpinning my sculpture and installations are a fundamental search for something through action, grappling with materials and manipulating until a kind of truth or realisation is released during the process, allowing the intrinsic properties of the material to arise. The work avoids obvious connotations and is non-representational, it is, ‘about sculpture’. I enter into a mental dialogue with the material as to what is required and the process allows me to move beyond metaphor and into something more directly experienced. I am in a place of ‘flow’ and completely absorbed in the making of the work.

Influenced by the human body and how it leaves a memory of its action on the material, the work is physical and confrontational. I both isolate and absorb myself in the making process to allow the materials to dictate their form. I am keen to find out about the materials and what they need on one hand, whilst controlling them on the other; this balance is central and sought.

In my day-to-day studio practice I have perceived an unexpected correlate for this period of total ‘flow’ with the data streams of information I receive.

TWILL HOOKED, Aluminium & calico, 40x30x50cm, 2016

The frenetic lives we lead are in part due to the digital communication that takes place. We are constantly bombarded with information via technology and many different components are acting upon us at any one time. How does this translate within the work that is being made and can we separate ourselves from these influences or does every piece of information become stored on a cellular level in our bodies and therefore affect the work in progress.

TRIDENT PROP, Aluminium, acrylic spray paint, plastic tubing and tape, 220x160x180cm, 2017

Walter Benjamin’s essay, The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction continues to play a role in understanding how technology contributes to a de-aestheticization of art in the modern world.

Artist Helen Marten creates work that is multi-faceted and currently we seem unable to establish if there is a master narrative or unity to her work. I intend to contribute to the debate by making sculpture and questioning if unity is possible or if technology is responsible for the disparate nature.

TRACERY RUNGS, Wood, moss and copper thread, 246x50x75cm, 2017

I am concerned with the expansion of taste. Taste in terms of what can be accepted in the making process, and what cannot. Within these concerns is an awareness of the potential space for creativity, the heightened idea of potentiality through the process of making. When is the mark or the action encouraged, nurtured and honed, and when is it eradicated or altered? Such a potential space is paramount in the work and occupies a place where language and communication occur.

APOGEE, Aluminium & cotton thread, 27x23x30cm, 2016

I graduated from St. Helens College (part of Chester University) in 2011 where I achieved a first class honours degree in Fine Art (Painting). In 2014 I undertook an MFA in Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University which was successfully completed in October 2016.

Methods:

The central objective is to continue to make a work within a practice-based methodology. As such original investigation will be undertaken to gain new knowledge, partly by means of practice and partly by the outcomes of that practice. The objectives and methodologies are therefore intrinsically linked as the practice is evolutionary.

References:

W. Benjamin, 1936, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction; Broderson XV

Berger, John, 2008, Ways of Seeing, Penguin Modern Classics

Cooke, Lynne, 2011, Agnes Martin, Dia Art Foundation, New York

Elkins, James, 1996, The Object Stares Back, Harvest, Inc. New York

Csikszentmihalyi, M, 1996, Creativity, New York, Harper Collins

Exhibitions

COMPETITIONS, AWARDS

2017, 3D Prize, West Lancs Open, UK

2015, Blooom Award by Warsteiner , shortlisted

Residencies

2018, Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK

2017, The Great Medical Disaster, Manchester, UK

TWO MAN SHOWS

2018 with Paul Bramley, The Abingdon Experiment, Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK

2017 with Paul Bramley, Recent Works, Studio 24, Leeds, UK

2017 Jenny Eden & Polly Tomlinson, Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool Hope University, UK

Group Shows

2017 Transfuse, The Great Medical Disaster, Manchester, UK

2017 West Lancs Open, Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk, UK

2016 MFA Show Grosvenor Gallery, Manchester School of Art, UK

2015 MA Show Grosvenor Gallery, Manchester School of Art, UK

2015 Electric Open Electric Picture House, Congleton, UK

2014, West Lancashire Open Exhibition, Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk, UK

2014 Degree Show St. Helens College, UK

2013 8BA2 Show St. Marys Market, St. Helens, UK

2013 St. Helen’s Open, World of Glass, St. Helens, UK

©Polly du Cros

Feel Comfortable To Touch This Work

Posted on 29/11/201629/11/2016 by zabihi40@gmail.com

Name: Chloe Beecham

DOB: September 1994

Place of Birth: Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

Occupation: Trainee teacher

I am a textile artist and a recent graduate from Manchester School of Art. I specialise in mixed media, with a focus on embroidery techniques. Concept and process are of equal importance to me, and I often use one to convey the other. I find inspiration in the way things make me feel and am drawn to details that are often overlooked.

As an artist, I am interested in pursuing ideas concerning motherhood, and specifically, the dynamic that surrounds the mother/daughter relationship.

Recent work is sculptural in its outcome and is site-specific in both its design and articulation. Embroidery techniques such as the buttonhole rouleaux fastening are utilized and then pushed to epic proportions. Soft cloth is utilized to form heavy sculptural line qualities that sweep and soar through the air or hang limp and lifeless. This cloth based line has its origination in drawings made on paper; ink, gouache and pencil that moves at different speeds as it is pushed and teased around a sheet of paper. Cloth enables this line to escape the two-dimensionality of the paper and to literally become ‘drawn’ within an actual three-dimensional space. The scale of the work directly aims to engage the viewer; but it is not particularly embracing. It shields, it dissects but it is also black and monolithic. There is much discomfort here.

I respond primarily to spaces. I am fascinated by the way people use spaces, particularly public spaces, and find it interesting to consider the way I could change the way people respond. I am enthusiastic about showing my work in non-traditional gallery spaces. The way in which a person behaves in a space is really interesting to me. It is something that is often dictated by social norms. For example in traditional art galleries, members of the public are more than likely forbidden from touching and interacting with the work. This is an idea that I aim to challenge within my work. It is important to me that people engage with my work, and feel comfortable to touch and manipulate what they see.

Textiles in Practice

Detail (rubber binding)

My practice is very process led. My textiles background has encouraged me to be very tactile. This has coloured my view of my own practice, and has led me to create work that people are drawn to interact with. I’m interested in texture and line, and the use of scale to engage the audience. I am mostly inspired by space- particularly the idea of using space as a canvas. I enjoy the notion of using “dead spaces” and voids to create something where there was once nothing.

I’m currently studying to become a Higher Education lecturer and my aims for the future are to teach alongside continuing my practice. I would also like to undertake an MA in Fine Art in the near future.

Dreaming Under The Water

Posted on 28/10/201628/10/2016 by zabihi40@gmail.com

In western scientific concept it is believed that universe is created by the four elements : Water, Air, Fire and Earth.

Each of these elements contains its own unique characterize, and It cannot be told whether they’re good or bad, although each element has both positive and negative sides. Nobody is perfect and whatever your personality is, you have both pros and cons.

It is so important to know your element, in order to figure out your basic emotions, desires, strengths and weaknesses.
By understanding your element you will be able to know yourself and appreciate your personality.

The concept behind Bill Viola’s (b,1961) work is mostly about these elements (Water, Air, Fire and Earth).

“Water is everything for me, that’s what I do” Viola said in his interview with The Space.
The idea of self knowledge: For the first time humanity could see their own reflection through the medium of water.
In other words, water shows your individuality to yourself, shows your personality.
He said that when he was a child he had drowning experience, and now he figured out this is the reason he is using water in his works a lot.
Under the water, under the surface of the water is always a mysterious. Its a world that you cant image it easily.

This incident effects on his whole life. Viola drown to the end of the lake like a stone and saw the most beautiful world down there. He saw all the movement and waves of the water like a moving image, “it was all blue and green.”

“I fell into a lake when I was six years old, and I fell to the bottom and I saw probably the most beautiful world I’ve ever seen and it was colourful and it was light and these plants where moving. I see it regularly. I see it constantly, almost, in my mind and my mind’s eye. It was a kind of paradise and so I felt that was the real world. I was very lucky because I didn’t die, my uncle saved me. But what happened was I was shown just by this accident that there’s more than just the surface of life; that the real thing is under the surface.” (Interview with Voila byThe Space)

We All Know The Body Is 70% Water

In human body, mind works as an intellectual part, it says what to do and when to do and it has connections with heart, but heart feels the joy, sadness, emotions and etc.
That’s all mediated by water, we all know the body is 70% water. And this water is flowing all the time, it’s moving and flowing “thats who we are, we are moving image.”

“The Dreamers” (2013) consists of seven channel screen video/sound installation which display people partly dead and partly alive, underwater with their eyes closed.

This video installation draw the spectator attention to the faces, and the way that they are suspended in the water makes this feeling like the water is a part of their bodies, they are on their reflection and it’s flowing around them.

For representing an idea or a narrative Time and Space are two basic elements, in “The Dreamers” the time does not exist, but the place is kind of multiplied.
The place, or in other word the water is part of the character and this is reality and the information and data is flowing around them.

Author Niloufar Zabihi Zohari

Pictures from Blain Southern & Hunger TV