Installing 'Presence' for Light Night Leeds 2012

 

Thanks to everyone who helped with the installation of my work for Light Night it looked fabulous on the night!

Nearly there!

Come on down and see my installation at Light Night Leeds 2012 5th October fingers crossed all the hard work will pay off!!
http://lightnightleeds.co.uk/events/existence/

Light Night 2012 & creating 'Existence'

'Existence' will be an installation consisting of 100's of hand knitted monofilament cocoons hung vertically within a space in Leeds Town Hall on the 5th October  This is a real challenge!Realising each cocoon is now taking me around 45 minutes. I am using every spare moment to make them. My very talented mum has offered her help; she now realises this task is not like knitting with wool!!

Counting!

Bags of cocoons!

All this 'making' 'counting' and forming of physical entities brings with it the satisfaction of creativity and the forming of an other worldly, matrix like environment, within the cocoons themselves and also the space in which they will inhabit!

Arts @ Trinity Festival

                                

  

                                                                               

Participants recreating the print of an apocalyptic scene onto the pavement at Holy Trinity Church in Leeds. This process was a direct response to an earlier interactive process I had created of drawing with raw materials; stone & charcoal onto sandpaper.  Engaging with the space around us participants recreated the image in sections onto the pavement with coloured chalk and charcoal. The exercise shows how much individuality we each have in our way of mark making. By using coloured chalk the scene was reversed in its theme to dark and foreboding to light and uplifting.

Synthetic cocoons in the landscape

I now begin to make many of these knitted cocoons. Each one is made with much speed; the more I make the easier the process becomes. They have an alien quality and begin to replace previous forms of stones taken from the landscape. The forms have been reversed the knitted monofilament that once encased rocks in previous work have now become a dominant feature. Taken out into the landscape they appear as an alien presence, nestled within the landscape the contrast of the synthetic and natural elements is highlighted by the sunlight.

Life goes on as an emerging artist!

My Degree may be finished but i still continue to make, manipulate and transform materials and the environment around me. Using monofilamnet as a material over the past few months has generated a real fascination with this versatile thread. Transforming this material from long never ending reels  into forms and entities in their own right has become a slight obsession with me!Its aesthetic quality when highlighted by artificial or natural sun light is very beautiful and something i cannot ignore!

I am now beginning to develop an installation. Knitting heavier gauge monofilament i begin to form cocoons and hang them vertically.    

Installation

My own work presented as an installation. Utilising the gallery floor as an environment mirroring the landscape in which i inhabited and where the stones themselves were taken from. I choose to utilize the space presented to me to resolve my work. Presenting work in this way generates an awareness of environmnet, space and place, drawing attention to the reasoning behind the work itself.

Interdisciplinary Art & Design Final Show POST*

The Interdisciplinary Graduates

James Hirst 'If You Cared to Look'

Claire Selman 'Perspectives'

Gina Stockwell 'In Preperation'

Varsha Cohen 'Untitled'

Katie Broadly 'Happily Ever After?'

Laura Holmes 'Untitled'



Sherelle Davies 'The Accused'

(Foreground) Elisa Heikkila 'Untittled (catena)'
(Background) Kat Grant 'Dont't play with your food'

A few images of my fellow students work showing the diverse mediums and concepts generated from the varied and talented graduates of our course. What a privilege to have been part of this creative world for the past 3 years.

Art & Design Interdisciplinary Final Show

My role in the development of the final show has been as part of the curator team and general organizer, advisor and hands on production of painting and construction work! We decided as a group to include a ‘Hub’ similar to the area which was formed at our previous exhibition *Pre at Enjoy. This would facilitate an area of conversation, interaction and a place to sit and watch the films created showing the many processes each of us as individuals as well as a group have engaged with in the realization of our final project. The blackboard surround was created to give opportunity for physical expression from visitors and students. I had originally sourced some pallets from Horticap for a previous idea I had of displaying my own work. Their natural construction aesthetic worked well with the rest of the exhibition and they were eventually modified to become tables within the hub.

This is it the final show!



Check out the Art & Design Interdisciplinary final show Post* where my final work can be seen.

Resolution

Corner bound monofilament

Knitted section of monofilament over spot light

Wal to wall monofilamnet

Corner aspect of monofilament & projection

Landscape stones encased in monofilament

I have been experimenting with many different mediums in preparation for the final degree show but seem to have got lost in the aesthetic qualities of monofilamnet! After our last crit on Monday i began to realise how in the last few weeks i had become distant from the core aspects of my practice; the organic and the physicality of the real. I am constantly challenged with how i will represent the realness of the rural environment and the materials that inhabit this space within a gallery setting. Nothing can replicate the experience of the elements and their physicality; you have to be there within them inhabiting the landscape itself to appreciate their aesthetic.

Preparing for Final Degree Show

Preparations are now in full swing for the work i will be exhibiting at the Final Major Show of my degree in Interdisciplinary Art & Design  at Leeds College of Art. At this point i am working through the different processes i have currently been engaged in and am unsure of what i will realise!
The physicality of the environment is paramount. However the problem i am always faced with is that the elements and the experience of actually being present within the rural environment can never be replicated; you have to be there within it to appreciate its physicality.
I am engaging in a wide range of processes from knitting, binding space and place, foraging, raw organic mark making and the process of documentation through film. It will be a major decision as to which of these processes will become a representation of my cause for all things real and physical.!

Feedback/Comments on mark making process

Stone drawings on sandpaper

 

A selection of the beautiful stone drawings realised by the many participants of my process led piece as part of Pre* @ Enjoy.

Drawn onto sandpaper these stone/charcoal drawings represent the ephemeral and physical qualities of raw materials; the need that each one of us has to make our own physical and palpable mark within the world. The delicate nature of these drawings means that in some cases the marks made are removed easily with slight of hand and movement, heightening their transient and ephemeral nature.