Casting
Finally managed to cast in wax today using alginite – I decided to use wax rather than plaster as I think it will work better with the hair and the properties feel more realistic and less lardy/clinical.
I practiced sewing into the wax but wanted a surface mark to show under the skin too which I could only do with carving and ink – will experiment more with layers of wax perhaps.
Once I had cast the hands I changed my mind about how I wanted to use them -originally I wanted them on opposite walls with the hair gradually growing as I added to it over time – now I’m not so sure as would like to try different things rather than just one piece.
I became a bit precious with them and didn’t want to ruin them due to cost etc – defeats the object of trying to experiment.
Had a chat with Will who is gonna help me make a mold to use – it will be good for me to learn the process and will mean I can experiment with materials and how to finish them.
Looked into other artists around the subject of skin, sewing and the specialism into the uncomfortable. Another student told me about some sagging skin sculptures by Francesco Albano.
These humanesque grotesque sculptures made me both curious and a little sick – they made me feel like I was viewing somebody’s death or murder and I felt a little uncomfortable looking – this feeling intrigues me – He uses wax, polyester, latex and other materials – he appears to use a variety of techniques and experimentation – sculpting clay, painting, material to create the effect.
Rosa Verloop is a Dutch artist using tights to create figures that are uncomfortable for the viewer – like Albano’s work above, for me, the feelings of death, loss and pain come are evoked
what was interesting for me for these pieces was the simplicity and immediacy of materials compared to Albano – I don’t feel that these sculptures evoke as strong a reaction towards discomfort, this perhaps is due to the material and shapes. These were eerie nylon sculptures that did look wax like
Jessica Harrison – Scottish artist who works in a variety of mediums – the pieces I was looking at were her skin sculptures – these are made from casts of skin
The feeling of the uncomfortable is definately there for me looking at these – I find them kind of funny too because of the use of the everyday – toylike objects – like they were taken from a dollshouse. I keep drawing little chairs that appear unreal or childlike. Perhaps for me it is the merging of the uncomfortable with the completely acceptable play object that appeals to me.
I kept searching under the speciality of the uncomfortable and came across Katerina Kamprani who is primarily an architect interested in product design – her personal project The uncomfortable project is a re-design of everyday useful objects into uncomfortable, impractical but still usable in an awkward, unatural way. The end result of the objects amused me and made me think of them in use – I am definately drawn to the everyday but how this can be manipulated and changed to create something most different.
I looked at David Cata who embroiders onto his own palm portraits of loved ones
I enjoyed looking at the first image – but then they just appeared like portraits/photographs – I wouldn’t want to sew into my own skin but have been looking at ways to reflect this – perhaps with the casting I can experiment to achieve the effect and also pva casts of myself may work.
I thought the work of Susie MacMurray was beautiful. Using hair, fish hooks, hairnets, wax, glasses, clingfilm to name a few – the works look meticulously worked to create gentle, transformed and soft sculptures
I was quite relieved to find her work – as rather than using similar materials to create a feeling of discomfort – these works became something so serene – even though there was wax, normal old cling film, dangerous fish works etc.
Mathilde Roussel
Paper and glue sculptures – layers on layers, folded legs and arms – cothes hugging each other – agan this feeling of loss, emptiness, uncomfortableness
French artist Mathilde Roussel creates fantastic “living sculptures” made of recycled metal and fabric filled with soil and wheat grass seeds.
“Mathilde Roussel’s work is a sensible and symbolic research about the nature of physical life. She is interested in the cyclic metamorphoses that transform organic matter, whether vegetable, animal or human. Through her sculptures, installations or drawings, Roussel interrogates the ways in which time weighs on our body, leaving its traces as an imprint and thus creating an invisible archive of our emotions, a mute history of our existence. Skin becomes paper while our cells transform into graphite particles and our muscular tissues in thin membrane of flayed rubber. Her work becomes a mapping of the body, an anatomy of our fragile presence in the world.”
Kate Kretz nest of human hair