Negative space around the main shape this is how I saw this idea. This art pieces reminded me of Rachel Whiteread. The artist shows the inner, negative space, and not the object itself. We guess about it although it is not present.
I used boxes and plastic bags because, for me, it is our reality. Buy and sell, online orders which come in cardboard boxes. I thought, why to build something out of wood as a support for mould when there is already an object that can be used a second time. Also, this material looked good, when plaster is poured the cardboard acquires a rounded, smooth shape.
Earlier, I already worked with boxes, but before I just changed their appearance. These works from the course Drawing 1.
Now, it turns out that the shape of the box is the main character. And at the same time, inside the mould of the box has become a negative space to the object within this form. The object itself is not there, but we see it due to the surrounding form.
An interesting fact remains, that I cannot 100% control the result, so there is a moment of randomness. The material lives its own life independently of me. That's pretty much what Tim Ingold was talking about: «We looked at the heap, from which a spider scuttled out across the carpet. It had arrived as a passenger with some item, but no one knew from which. Or was it actually a part of the item?» (Ingold, 2013, 17) The spider left its place, and the object turned out to be different, without a spider, without life, something has changed due to circumstances beyond our control.
Thus, I have created an object, placed it in the box. The plaster in the limited space behaved quite independently. And then, I removed the main subject/positive space. Instead of the main object, a hole remains. Positive space which is not there is a contradiction in itself.
Bright paint refers to pop-art colours, but when changing the light to an ultraviolet lamp, it feels like something digital. Why such a feeling? Probably because we are used to the fact that if the light comes from the surface and it is not a lamp, then it is most likely a digital screen.
While doing research, I discovered the concept of glitch art.
«Glitch art is the practice of using digital or analogue errors for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices.» Online At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_art (Accessed 05.12.2020)
This dramatic difference in the perfect white plaster sculpture seemed like a digital mistake to me. Only this error has been transferred from the digital to the physical world.
When I tried to put this idea on paper, it didn't work.
Or it worked but in some other direction – it is flat, and that is. Drawing pretends to copy three-dimensionality and sculpture already in this area. It seems to me that painting really needs to stay flat in the sake of pictorial art. But this sculpture also can be seen as two-sided. It has front and back like a sheet of paper has the same. Can we then say that it is flat? No. It is a volume which we aware of, in the physical world we can identify this difference.
To continue to read about this work:
Termites glitch, 2020, plaster, acrylic, 37H x 38L x 13.5W cm.
Another work from this series was a discovery. Since there were three pieces from one sculpture, I needed to put them together. But the fault line would be visible, so I decided to exaggerate it. I drilled holes for joining the pieces with wooden sticks and filled the cracks with foam. The shape and size of the foam looked the same as the inner clay pattern. It looks like the insides are falling out of the box. Very picturesque and alive.
Bibliography and references
1. Tim Ingold (2013) MAKING. Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge
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