In previous weeks I have spoken of the way in which the body is likeable to a container and how this idea has taken on a resonance within my own art making. Initially I had been preoccupied with feelings of being contained or self-containment and turned my attention to showing this in a series of images I made by photocopying my face and then developing these images in Photoshop (please see previous post). However I have since wanted to work with these ideas in a 3 dimensional way spurred by thoughts about the container as a physical object. Consequently I’ve started to re-purpose these images into a series of paper models or machetes (see images opposite). These works have a certain dynamic quality as close-ups of the face are stetched widthways, leading the eye around the form.
During this time I have been strongly influenced by the work of artist Gary Hill with a particular interest in his video installation, Inasmuch as it Always Already Taking Place (see opposite). Within the work, ‘sixteen, various sized, stripped down television screens transmit images of the fragmented body of the artist. A foot, an eye, a curved section of the spine and other anatomical parts are composed like elements in a still-life painting’ (Phaidon, 1999: 202)
As such, the theme of containment seems to be becoming an umbrella term for lots of different ideas relating not only to the body, but also the studio as a sort of housing where these thoughts and feelings can become manifest.
References:
Phaidon Press, (1999), The 20th-century Art Book, London: Phaidon Press Ltd
