This was my first experience of having a piece of work in a proper exhibition, which was held at the High Street / Museum exhibition-space in Ipswich. I learned quite a lot through this experience, as I had to put my work in a deep freeze for a number of weeks prior to it going up. As the space is next to the museum and run by museum staff, they have to be completely sure that organic artwork does not bring in bugs etc. that can be harmful to the other old and valuable exhibits on the museum site. This was quite a technical learning curve, but understandable and it gave me quite an insight into certain gallery procedures.
The work itself was a combination of beach finds (interesting branches and stones) along with various found fabrics and string etc. I consider the work to be an example of a cross fertilisation of ‘Land Art’ and ‘Outsider Art’, but in this case, brought indoors and into the gallery space, (although it had been standing outside prior to the exhibition).
I am drawn to creating objects and installations that have a ritualistic / shamanic quality and am particularly drawn to making art whereby I (as the maker) can undergo a perceptual shift when I make it. I guess that such a ‘perceptual shift’ is common for artists, but it is a personal area that I am exploring for myself. In Buddhist meditation practice there are various terms to describe ‘absorption states’, or jhana (in Pali) / dhyana (in sanskrit). I find that in my art-making, I can move into highly concentrated states of awareness that I find difficult to access otherwise. When making ritualistic type pieces, this process seems to be amplified, as if I am getting in touch with quite deep (and perhaps primitive) parts of my psyche. I also find that in this altered state, I no longer have to ‘think’ about what I am doing and am instead able to work from a predominantly ‘feeling’ and ‘intuitive’ place, where ‘thinking’ appears more of an interference. In this psychological space, it feels as if the ‘making’ is coming from the unconscious. In the introduction to her book ‘Dancing with the Unconscious’, Danielle Knafo states that,
The artistic process does not lend itself to linear descriptions. The inspired artist relies on the covert and spontaneous activities of the unconscious, never quite sure of, exactly, what she is doing or what she will do next. (Knafo, 2012, xxi)
Essentially, this particular work could be viewed through various theoretical lenses, but one I am drawn to is connected to the Freudian explanation of Eros and Thanatos. I can see that from this theoretical standpoint, my sculpture is mainly comprised of ‘dead’ material. Obviously, few art materials are alive, but the branches that I have used were very alive at one point, as parts of a living tree. In making the sculpture, I have attempted to give these component parts another ‘life’. I have also joined and tied them together so that they once again ‘stand’ as a ‘new being’. Perhaps as the artist, I am trying to be god like, creating new life (Eros) from ‘death’ (Thanatos), or perhaps it is even related to a fear of death. In ‘Art and Psychoanalysis’ Walsh (2015) discusses the tension between these two drives; Eros which she describes as ‘binding’ and Thanatos which she describes as ‘bordering on disintegration’ (Walsh, 2015, p.100). Walsh discusses the work of Eva Hesse (1936-1970) in these terms and I can completely relate to Hesse’s slightly paradoxical feelings of being ‘compelled’ to make sculpture, along with considering the works she made as being completely absurd (Walsh, 2015, p.100).
