First Semester Assessment Post

This year my artist practise has mostly revolved around sculpture and I have dabbled in printmaking to help with my research and progression. I have been primarily using wood and resin to make my sculptures but have recently been using plaster, I have been testing out the relationship between these materials, wood being more natural and resin being more man made. A major theme to my work is whether Design / Interior Design can be considered Fine Art, I want to make structures and artwork that engage the concept of “Display”, as a form that foregrounds objects, raising consciousness of the play of presentation. For example, during my interim assessment, I set up a mock interior and arranged my artwork in a specific way, questioning whether I intentionally put things next to each other.

A quote from Robert Therrien, an American artist who works primarily in sculpture, his artwork references pop and conceptual art. He said, “Experiencing the sculpture physically and additionally transforming the viewers perception of the exhibition space” this was in relation to his No Title (Table and Four Chairs) (2003) where viewers could walk underneath giant table and chairs. I like this quote because I want my viewers to step into a space that I have designed specifically and want them to question why I have used those materials, or why I have set up the interior the way I did etc.

I have tried to experiment in my working methods this semester, I have used printing making and mark making to quickly test and play around with ideas before applying them to the wood and resin sculptures I create. I have also experimented with the sculptures themselves, I obviously intended to make perfect sculptures every time, however I have found the most success in the mistakes and mishaps I have made for example several of my sculptures have broke but they broke in such a natural way that i could never recreate that outcome again, these mistakes have been a good learning process and these imperfections give my work a different quality, a good one, in my opinion.

During my experimentation as a result I have looked at a variety of artists to help flesh out my body of work, for example I have researched and looked at the work of Haim Steinbach, Scott Burton and most recently Donald Judd whose work all balance between Art and Furniture (design).