The definition of 'vessel' is that it is more than a boat. But for the purposes of this, I suppose it can be a boat, seeing that these took on barge form.
This small series was my swan-song in mixed media sculpture. I'd been asked to contribute to an exhibition and I was well into my conceptual stage of generating affectology and Af-x as a way of seeing human beings and helping with the resolution of difficult emotional states. I was also quite involved in conducting therapeutic resolutions for a wide range of student issues across the whole of the art school: that is - issues related to things like 'creative blocks' and other conceptual performance problems. So I wanted to put together a few pieces that said something about people. (as though I hadn't been doing that all along!)
Perhaps you could call these pieces ugly. Perhaps not. Depends on how you look at things. They were certainly 'brutish' in outward appearance, and that was the intention.
These were quite large, heavy and cumbersome pieces made in the shape of marine vessels - boats. As I said, they were intentionally solid and unwelcoming. So much so that I called one of them (as you have to do - name your work in the art scene, that is), "Iron Shirt." So, these were plain, non-decorated forms with (again, as in the spirit traps and others) delicate and fragile built structures and objects that were housed 'within.' .... an anthropomorphic metaphor, of course.
In the case of this exhibition, the pieces were suspended from the ceiling of a large gallery, and the top of the vessels were positioned so that their top surface was at the eye-level of a normally sized adult. This meant that one had to stand on tips of toes and look inside to discover that a brutish, rather unattractive entity could indeed have a very delicately interesting and brittle interior ... much like many people I knew/know.
I didn't really mean them to do so well - they were my way, I think, of thumbing my nose at a somewhat shallow world of art that seemed to devour itself in its own vortex of self-importance and superficiality - another way of saying that it had a habit of disappearing up its own backside. In any case, seems that more people than I saw what the work was about. The two biggest of these vessel pieces hang somewhere in New Zealand and Los Angeles (as of latest news).
So these were my segue pieces in the shift from the world of art and sculpture to the world of human affective states therapy. If you bothered to analyze the path carefully, there's not much difference.
This small series was my swan-song in mixed media sculpture. I'd been asked to contribute to an exhibition and I was well into my conceptual stage of generating affectology and Af-x as a way of seeing human beings and helping with the resolution of difficult emotional states. I was also quite involved in conducting therapeutic resolutions for a wide range of student issues across the whole of the art school: that is - issues related to things like 'creative blocks' and other conceptual performance problems. So I wanted to put together a few pieces that said something about people. (as though I hadn't been doing that all along!)
Perhaps you could call these pieces ugly. Perhaps not. Depends on how you look at things. They were certainly 'brutish' in outward appearance, and that was the intention.
These were quite large, heavy and cumbersome pieces made in the shape of marine vessels - boats. As I said, they were intentionally solid and unwelcoming. So much so that I called one of them (as you have to do - name your work in the art scene, that is), "Iron Shirt." So, these were plain, non-decorated forms with (again, as in the spirit traps and others) delicate and fragile built structures and objects that were housed 'within.' .... an anthropomorphic metaphor, of course.
In the case of this exhibition, the pieces were suspended from the ceiling of a large gallery, and the top of the vessels were positioned so that their top surface was at the eye-level of a normally sized adult. This meant that one had to stand on tips of toes and look inside to discover that a brutish, rather unattractive entity could indeed have a very delicately interesting and brittle interior ... much like many people I knew/know.
I didn't really mean them to do so well - they were my way, I think, of thumbing my nose at a somewhat shallow world of art that seemed to devour itself in its own vortex of self-importance and superficiality - another way of saying that it had a habit of disappearing up its own backside. In any case, seems that more people than I saw what the work was about. The two biggest of these vessel pieces hang somewhere in New Zealand and Los Angeles (as of latest news).
So these were my segue pieces in the shift from the world of art and sculpture to the world of human affective states therapy. If you bothered to analyze the path carefully, there's not much difference.
_ Vessel sculpture. Bark tanned buffalo hide. Hand sewn. Hand dyed.
Stainless steel, Gold leaf, red suede, dried rose, Tea tree wood, linen
Approx 2 metres long.
Stainless steel, Gold leaf, red suede, dried rose, Tea tree wood, linen
Approx 2 metres long.
_ Vessel form “Iron Shirt”. Bark tanned buffalo hide, linen, rawhide, stainless steel. OK ... in the intro above I talked about "looking inside." With this piece, you couldn't. But as with humans, it doesn't mean that there's not a delicateness contained within (metaphor only - this piece was empty. After all, it's only art!
Approx 2 metres long.
Approx 2 metres long.
Above & right:
These two vessel forms suspended in situ at exhibition.
Crates were approx 3.5 metres long.
These are only two of the series that I made - around 8 pieces. But these were the biggest and most complex. Around that time, I had become disinterested in the business of photographing the work, and ready to move on; so I have no pics of the rest of the series.
THE END: So, there it is. I left the art school, sold and gave away all my tools and materials and moved to Sydney to establish my practice. Do I miss it? No. I figure that I'm currently involved in far more creative work than I was ever responsible for as a musician, master craftsman, or sculptor.
THE END: So, there it is. I left the art school, sold and gave away all my tools and materials and moved to Sydney to establish my practice. Do I miss it? No. I figure that I'm currently involved in far more creative work than I was ever responsible for as a musician, master craftsman, or sculptor.
Creativity is creativity.
Nothing has changed but the material.
Nothing has changed but the material.