I had the honour of being in the Room 1 Gallery for a week long residency. This was from Nov 26-Dec 2 2020 in Ipswich.
Image of the CUBED space within the Room 1 Gallery at the University of Suffolk 2020
This started as an idea that I had over the summer, sometimes these come to me at unusual times of the day. An word popped into my head ‘eggs’, and I wrote it down and didn’t think of it again. I must have been influenced by the installation i saw in Firstsite of Antony Gormley’s Field for the British Isles (1993). This was a very inspiring exhibition the see physically and I really enjoyed taking my time to look at it for as long as I did. I feel that it had an influence on my work as it made me think about how I could make on a larger scale to what I had been doing before. I enjoyed working with plasticine and clay as a child and had bought some air dry clay to play around with. I hadn’t made something sculptural accurate during my time of the course. I did make a sculpture of a hare in first year (looking back at now makes me cringe a little, but we learn) and I hadn’t looked at sculpture like this before.
I began making an egg using DAS air dry clay and moulded it so it folded round my table. It dried well but it was an expensive material to buy. I had decided at this point that I needed to make approximately 30 eggs to fill the space provided in the Room 1 gallery within the cube. After making about 11 and letting them dry, sanding and painting and glazing them took much longer than I had first anticipated.
Image of the first DAS clay batch of eggs
I decided to use air dry clay with a higher fibre content as it was more cost effective. After laying the eggs out in the measurements of the space I knew I needed a lot more. In total I made around 70 eggs and I really enjoyed the process.
Image of most of the first and second batch of eggs
Once I was in the space I played around with the placement of the eggs. First I tried spacing them out within the CUBED structure and was impressed that I had been able to make enough to fill the space evenly. This was my first idea and I had made a digital mock up of it previously online.
Image of digital mock up of the eggs in the CUBED space
I had initially thought of including a white cube within the CUBED space, mainly to have something for the moulded eggs to lean on and move downwards on. However, I had a discussion with Jane and she reminded me of the project we did in first year with Srin based on the concept of the pedestal, which is often used to display artefacts within museums, or pieces of sculptural art of value. I did some research on the meaning of it and how it carries much historical meaning and decided that maybe it might actually detract from the concept so I didn’t pursue it.
Concept 1: Image of the eggs in the CUBED space
THis was how my initial concept – 1 turned out. I wasn’t thrilled with how it turned out. It looked too placed and thought out and I just thought it didnt really have the effect I had hoped it would. THis was a little frustrating but I decided to play around with the placement again.
Concept 2: Image of the eggs in the CUBED space
I liked this a little more as I thought the idea of them pouring into and out of the constraints of the CUBED space was pretty exciting. But again, it didn’t really work for me.
I tried thinking of how I might incorporate the collection of dead insects I had collected over the summer. I decided to place them in the space like how a trail of ants may have walked around the space, as if an army.
Image of the eggs placed in the space like an ants formation
I decided to place the insects on the eggs. I felt this created an uncial and uncanny feel to the sculptures which I quite liked. The eggs had a certain humour about them, but placing the insects on the eggs made me feel uneasy. Dead insects all over fried eggs placed on the floor as if an army of ants had left them here for someone to discover, only if you land on our touch the eggs – as an insect, you many not survive. I just liked them like this so left it for a few days to gather some feedback.
Images of the eggs in the final formation with insects
