John Cornish/Peter Adsett – Materiality
An interesting week, One where we were asked to explore a material
that we were interested in.
As I am mainly a painter, this was an issue because
what paint does is represent something else when we manipulate it on a
‘ground’, this was something the class was not exploring. “The action of how
you form the work is paramount “ “Use your affinity, your history, what is
within you, to choose a material and what to do with it, repeat until you
understand that material and it takes you on a journey.
I did two things, first
I looked for a substance that I could recycle and came across some omaru stone
dust thrown out the back, I wondered if I could reconstitute (make it stone
again to then carve or create a shape from) Second I bought in three stretchers
and some material to cover them with. I stripped the material to wrap the
stretchers in creating a double sided canvas.
Peter Adsett thought that my ‘playing’ with the material
and wood should stop there but a canvas, no matter what it’s made of demands to
be painted on. So I took some photos of one of the members of the class (both
right and left profiles), and some front side and backside of some sparrows and
used them to paint on both sides of the canvas, this demands that the canvas is
no longer 2 dimensional, to be hung on a wall, these three canvasses had to be
hung in the middle of the room so they become something to walk around, a three
dimensional piece. I named the triptych ‘Birds of a feather flock together.
The
Omaru stone dust best ‘stayed together as balls and I created a snooker set although the cue was extremely
hard to finish, trying PVA, builders bond and just plain water, didn’t seem to
make much difference to the final ball, they were all equally hard, crumbly.
Something to explore in the future when I’ve got time.
