AirSpace Gallery Residency and Post Work

Gods

Attempt 1

Influenced by Mike Stone’s Book Lemon Man. I  intended to make a body cast to pour gold latex into to create my ‘angel’s’ skin. My initial interest was to make a skin that doesn’t highlight genitalia such as nipples, by using clingfilm before casting. I hoped that this would create a body foreign to what we recognise as sexual organs. However the mod roc didn’t fix as well as I’d hoped and I also applied to much plaster.

Nothing’s ever learnt without making mistakes

Attempt 2

I used more mod roc this time and no cling firm.

Hanging the body casts to dry. Testing out the moulds as objects in the space.

Sally (temp name) has just dried I made her from plaster,  her eyes have been painted black in reference to a principality /’angel’ for the upcoming video. Although I believe these angels are represented of having gold or white eyes, I have chosen black as I’d like to think there is space for a creature that lives in the in-between of good and evil.   Not sure I should have painted her skin white though. By taking images it provides me with an idea of what perspectives I could use, during video. And provides a clearer idea of how each scene and location can be manipulated. I have visited the ‘wasteland’ for the past two days and have found many objects.  That can be tweaked and added to, then placed back in there ‘original’ settings to add an alien presence. Some of these objects already have the potential for unresting  imagery and presence , they just need to be found then replaced in other enviroments.

I  found the dog (remains of a churchill dog) on day 2 but left the body in the waste lands so that I could come back to it. I found the the further away shot of the mix matched creature worked better then the close-up, as it created a sense of a non belonging foreign object, which is lost on the close-up. However when filming with a Nikon camera I am able to create that sense with focus on a close-up area of Sally-Dog. Starting with a blur then focus. Which has provided me with the idea of the eye being a portal for the following scene.

The hair not being firmly on the head would of definitely had an affect on how we view the mix matched doll, the hair in the first image made the doll look weird as one could tell that the hair was human, in the latest pic it had slipped and was damned by the rain, this isn’t necessarily  a bad thing as the texture added a sense of environment but as for the hair, sally will have to be given a hair re-vamp to regain the sense of human hair. The close up also doesn’t work as well, the doll should be fit into the environment as an unnerving find, or some-‘thing’ that jolts the image.

Planted on a field of gold

by the broken and the mended

The piece known as ‘Made In England’ made by Emma Briggs was at first background noise , it was something that I’d seen at the museum and appreciated the idea and visual aspect of the piece. But at the time didn’t feel compelled to incorporate the piece into visual research. But as I started reading Lemon Man the image became to surface at the forefront, as my aim started to reveal itself . I intend to make a film that incorporates the intricacy of a mosaic.

Lemon Man

Three characters are emerged as one

Lemon Man is written by a local author from Stoke-on-Trent, Mike Stone. The writer is only partially sighted, this aspect I believe shows through his writing it is like there is another sight/ dimension that is never written about, or put into words even in the best of books. Lemon Man seems to sit between characters Russell Hamilton and  John he is the character that moulds these two separate entities , two pieces of ceramic made by two different potteries but made from the same clay similar to Emma Briggs ‘Made In England’ the mixmatch is sealed together by Lemon Man.

Russell Lives a fairly everyday life, but has a sleeping disorder which opens a gateway/portal into the other world in which John lives, John has been captured by a principalities his fate is  beyond  his control, and through tortuous yet necessary acts he is transformed into an Angel/Principality.

-Dreams
-Read page 49

Found object in Stoke- on –Trent I found the piece of glass in a space between where two shops meet. An ex deserted car park. The piece of glass on a bigger scale I imagine is part of a bigger rupture. I liked the rupture that created a new pattern. I tried spaying gold paint into the glass as a physical representation or reminder of how I aim to convey the ‘angel’ in the video/ performances as a singular rupture that spreads out and bonds the different realms of reality. However it smeared all over the front of the glass and did not seep into the cracks, so I have reverted back to the image and the idea.

Notes

Flashes of good and bad aspects and in-between subjective moments, fragmented found beauty, broken conversations ‘recon-joining’ the sparse pieces of the city.

Litter forms will be presented as sugar glass casts. Ephemeral and consumer friendly (edible) . The gold angel will consume this. Crunching glass rubbish between the teeth.

The cement will come in a form of a motif or the ‘in-between person’ that bonds the mosaic influenced film footage, the form will be something of an ambiguous form but with gold colourant.  Each piece relates to a different surface and/or city.