MA Show at Bargehouse 2007

Here are some images and links from my MA Degree Show at the Bargehouse in November 2007 in London.

bargehouse link

and here I am listed as one of Donna Love

day's top ten highlights

Here are some images from the night:

Latest work

The Flake & the Cordless Mouse

Back again to the Acheulian hand axe which was my first image! Here the similarities are so big between this Retouched Levallois flake that dates from the middle Palaeolithic period - 70,000 years ago found in England and is in the British Museum and the Cordles Mouse produced by Packard Bell - Model No: C-3UP and was made in China 2004. Hand-object relationship.

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Video

"Bind as you find"

"Bind as you find" was the advice our trainer Peter Bleeze (Managing Director of Sovereign Training) gave us last week when he instructed us on how to deal with any kind of fractures (simple fractures, greenstick fractures and open fractures).

Last week I took an intensive 4-day intensive course on "First Aid at Work". After practising, studying, learning how to deal with various scenarios and casualties, and presenting a written and practical exam, I was able to qualify and obtain a certificate...thus allowing me to be a first aider! We were able to practice applying dressings and bandages to one another...and later on I practiced with my son and daughter.

It was interesting how I didn't get away from binding...yet again I found myself binding, wrapping and containing...but in this case wounds, fractures, cuts, burns and various other injuries in casualties!!! The difference was that in this case the wrapping or binding is done to protect, stop bleeding, prevent infection, keep part immobile, in general keep together before taken to hospital. It is a humane gesture to preserve life, to prevent the condition from becoming worse and to promote recovery.

Touch and hands play an important role while dealing with casualties. The back of our hands are the first ones to touch a casualty to check what is wrong with him/her. In case that there is no response we get near his/her nose and mouth trying to listen and feel for signs of breathing while placing one hand on the casualty's stomach. If the casualty is breathing we proceed with a tip-to-toe survey using sight and touch...we feel all the body to find further clues or signs of injury.

If the casualty is in a state of shock after dealing with the main case we proceed to reassure him/her by holding the casualty's hand and placing a blanket over his/her body. Touch becomes important in reassuring the casualty, maintaining communication and keeping him/her calm while help or an ambulance arrives or just while he/she recovers.

And finally our hands are really important when the person is not breathing...one has to proceed with CPR - "chest compressions". To do this it is necessary to place one hand on top of the other and interlock the fingers. We press downwards approximately 4-5cms and this is done 30 times at a rate of 100 per minute. Mouth to mouth resucitation can follow - but it not essential. The most important are the chest compressions until the ambulance arrives...The first aider hands can save the casualty's life!!! You can see the actions that are necessary on the drawings that show the arrows. (The first image is taken from "Workplace First Aid Manual", 2005, Safety First AId Group, 3rd Edition; and the last 2 images have been taken from "First Aid Manual",St. John Ambulance, St. Andrew's Ambulance Association & British Red Cross, 8th Edition, 2002, DK.)

The act of binding, wrapping or tying

"Encounter with Beuys" - 1984 - by Joseph Beuys - Vitrine containing Incontro con Beuys, 1974, felt, copper, fat, and cord ( Mark Rosenthal, Joseph Beuys, Actions, Vitrines, Environments, 2005, The Menil Collection, Houston & Tate Modern). "Beuys vitrine sculptures exemplify a literally pursuit, for they are created in private moments. The vitrine soliloquy manifests itself in the placement of the detritus of his studio, including leftover materials from his actions, into poetic ensembles within glass cases.......With a vitrine one dwells in a world of diminutive things, lovingly displayed and carefully composed. The viewer is encouraged to pose questions about the origin of each object, how each relates to the other and what might transpire by their continued proximity." (M. Rosenthal, Staging Sculpture, Joseph Beuys, pages: 57 & 63, 2005).

In this composition Beuys invites us to question the objects...in specific I am interested in the tied strips of fat...what is the significance of wrapping it with cord? Do we wrap and tie objects to contain them, to hold them together?

Why is this a reocurring strategy in many artists work? and ultimately why am I tying, holding together my round paper objects/drawings? Is the reason different for each individual artist? or are there universal reasons?

The act of crumpling into a ball

This image came through my letter box. It is curious because here the crumpled up piece of paper together with the inferred act of throwing shows frustration at not being able to start writing own creative ideas and later they suggest you should take one of their courses.

Another psychological strategy to get rid of stress or frustration is to crumpled up paper into small balls and throw them at a paper basket....Both acts of crumpling and throwing release your negative energy, frustration and anxiety...Have you ever tried it?

Have you done these actions? Were you angry or frustrated?

Are the acts of crumpling up , screwing up, making something into a ball, twisting, tightening, compressing, always denote frustration? Are there other adjectives or verbs to describe these actions? Let me know your thoughts and opinions.

Detail of "Cell"

This image is a detailed from Louise Bourgeois's work: Cell (You Better Grow Up) of 1993. Inside there are three carved hands that represent a pair of child's hands, gently clutched and comforted by an adult's. The arms are severed below the elbow, but this is not a gruesome image. The fragmented arms seem as a whole. The adult's gesture is comforting, and the flesh tone of the marble gives of a sense of warmth. This is just a detail in all "Cell" work - it should be seen as a whole because there is more to be understood - it is autobiographical. The hands - those of the child represent her and part of herself in the whole representation - her childhood. Again the hand motif has helped Bourgeois represent her inner thoughts. The cell is filled with echoes of number three. Here the three hands also evoke part of the triangle and the significance of number three, the sets of three that are very important for her. (R. Storr, P. Herkenhoff & A. Schwartzman, 2004, Louise Bourgeois, Phaidon).

G. Penone

In some of Guiseppe Penone's work the hand is a reoccuring motif. It is at the center and it is the object represented. Through the hand or hands he is able to express his thoughts. The hand is involved in the creative process. Touch and touching become part of the process of making and representing his work. In his trees frottages the hand executes the drawings, the hand touches the surfaces and defines along with him the areas that have to be represented...The hand becomes part of the work, it is included in an obvious manner or in a hidden way. In some of the work there are only marks, traces of the hand. In the fourth photograph where 2 hands are represented, one has left its marks on the other one. The hand has become the surface where marks have been drawn and one hand has become the vehicle alongside with clay, that has made the marks.
Very cleverly thought in all his works there is hand/object relationship and dependency. All these photos have been taken from the book: Guiseppe Penone, 2004, by Catherine Grenier, Centre Pompidou.

G. Penone

Phyllida Barlow

Phyllida Barlow is an artist that has caught my attention and has inspired me! Here are some examples of some of her work. The first is a section from Untitled: Metropole and she uses a variety of materials: paint, timber boards, canvas, satin, wool, hesian, cord. These are five hanging padded spheres, each in diameter measure 110cm and are suspended from a height of 600cm. The following two are also parts of bigger works/installations. She uses a variety of materials and media to express her ideas. There is a lot of wrapping and binding in her work. What attracts me to her work is the unlimited variety of approaches and ways of solving and presenting her work. Touch is an important element in her work as she models her work with polythene, tarpaulin, rags, foam, carpet felt, canvas, paper, timber, silk, foil, plaster...just to name some of the materials - what you get with Phyllida is materials - and lots of them.

"Hard and fast rules fall apart in her work before this list: traditional fine art materials are not wilfully expelled; industrial materials dominate, but not to the exclusion of organic ones; most do not change from liquid to solid, but plaster sets and bitumen hardens; some materials are bought, but some are found, and some become available by chance: the carpet material in "Threat" came from a fire-damaged factory." (Mark Godfrey, p. 36, 2000, Matter/Material, Phyllida Barlow's Sculptural Imagination, Black Dog Publishing Limited).

In her own words; "I am still looking for the single object, the object that can exist on its own. I am still looking for this. Perhaps there is no such thing."

Magdalena Abakanowicz

Here are some of the works by Magdalena Abakanowicz. The first one is called Hand from 1976, then Heads and finally you can see this Polish artist working on a piece in the "Embryology cycle". She connects the making of art directly to nature and the structure of the human brain: "Our brain bears the vestiges of our ancestors millions of years ago. The traces of primitive animals - first mammals. How the brain works is one of the most important questions of our time - questions which are not fully solved until today...the brainstems - steers the physiological functions of the main vital processes of the bodymaterial basis of all of our instinctive inborn behaviour...millions of years of past experie...the midbrain: is the nces are accumulated in the midbrain...the third part is the cerebral cortex...It provides the material basis for our conscious experience. Although the brain isn't an entity - one has to be aware of the different centers of power. They cause continuing and permanent struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our nature. Art is a product in this struggle." (B Rose, M. Abakanowicz, 1994, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, Publishers).

As Magdalena I wonder how much of what we make is instinctive and connected to experiences of our ancestors, the cavemen. How much of our senses we have lost and how much still remains within us and comes out when we create pieces of work? How much of our earlier experiences are supressed and how much we allow to get out and flourish? I am fascinated with all her work and the solutions she finds while creating them. The hand becomes the object and it also becomes part of the creation of the work. There is hand/object correlation. The tactile is always present. Multiples are also important in representing and displaying concepts. Abakanowicz's earliest drawings done as a child were scratched into the damp earth with sticks. As a child watching the clay crack as it dried, she thought of the cracks as part of the drawing. She says: "I did not yet know how to write. I drew in the earth with a stick. The marks were deeply etched. Then the rain erased them until they disappeared. I no longer remember when I received my first paper. I drew kneeling on the floor."

This is another example of how as children we play and start drawing with whatever we find, with materials that are available to us, not paper and pencil, but what is in front of us - we instinctively draw and transmit our creative thoughts with other materials and in various ways.