Unlike the title of the book by Julian Barnes, there is no sense of an ending. I am still inspired by the research I did as part of my Masters of Research in Art: Theory and Philosophy where my final dissertation looked into the tropes and mechanisms associated with ideas of the fragment within modern literature and modernity. As part of this one of the reoccurring themes was the idea of a fragment as never being fixed but being ever-changing and continually being influenced and in turn influencing all that it comes into contact with.
Such ideas are commonly associated with human-kind’s detrimental effect on the natural world. In respect to climate change and the extinction risk to many species of flora and fauna, it is well known that this clearly has a knock-on effect on the survival of mankind and the planet as a whole.
But there are more subtle connections that are becoming more and more prominent such as the positive effect on mental and physical health of humans being at one with nature. Is it possible that other animals and plants can sometimes feel the benefit of human-kind? We are just another creature that inhabits the world as they do, intercepting their space and interconnecting in ways that we cannot even imagine. That moment of connection is fluid, malleable; forever transforming and impossible to pin down.
‘We operate between the lines, the fragments and fissures, the detail and the signifiers, between the body and its senses and these invisible strands of connection…’ (Masterton F, 2021, p 51)
Following on from my August blog where I talk about the edge of my everyday consciousness and imagination and the birds that visit my garden, I have been trying to make a series of artworks that reflect this idea of the unfinished but interconnectedness of nature with humankind. The 2 works displayed are in themselves incomplete and whilst I will be doing a lot more work on the orange ‘Robin’ piece, it will deliberately not be resolved.
‘I have tried to portray an interconnected drift between content, time, matter, thought, what I imagine and my own reality’ ( Masterton F, 2021, p 50).
Reference:
(Masterton F, 2021, ‘My Grandmother’s Plait) – to read contact CSM Museum and Study Collection. https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/about-us/museum-and-study-collection
