LIMINAL
Peterborough Open Exhibition
March - April 2016
A2 Photographic image on 5mm board
March - April 2016
A2 Photographic image on 5mm board
Dialogues
Display Discourse & Dissent
Concrete
70 x 70 x 10 cm
Bishops Art Prize Unexpected Blessings Norwich Cathedral Untitled (engagement) Concrete with newspaper / magazine aggregate, mirror |
My inspiration for this sculpture was the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5): "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."Individuals rarely have time to appreciate their surroundings in this fast-paced world that is swamped by the flood of visual and social stimuli. This sculpture incorporates newspapers/magazines, that represent the world as we know it, in the fabric of the concrete. The gap, a place of transition, or sensory threshold, where one can stop a while and contemplate, reflect on and appreciate that which we have been given: the good simple things already in our lives that we are blessed with daily and are easily overlooked.
By looking through the mirror we can see ourselves and the reflection reminds us that we can create our own times. |
RESEARCH STATEMENT
My research has centred on the concept of liminality; a point of transition, a threshold of change. This has led to my investigation of existentialism and the idea of the need to be open to potential and new ideas and not be oppressed by tradition and the status quo.
In the period after the Second World War existentialism offered people the means to reject convention and change their lives. It then became unfashionable by the ‘80s possibly because the liberation movements of the 50s and 60s had achieved so much in civil rights, decolonisation, women’s equality and gay rights.
For the Masters project I am using contemporary sculpture to bring this notion of freedom back into the spotlight once again. In the 21st Century we find ourselves controlled to a shocking degree, farmed for our personal data, fed consumer goods and manipulated by the media. People have become familiar to their habits and to mass-media, forgetting to stop and think long enough to question what is going on, resist intimidation and the general tendency towards auto-pilot. These are the factors that Sartre and Heidegger believed we could and should change.
Fundamentally – my current work is to underline that we all have freedom and choice and that we should exercise this in order to add value to the quality of every-day life.
My research has centred on the concept of liminality; a point of transition, a threshold of change. This has led to my investigation of existentialism and the idea of the need to be open to potential and new ideas and not be oppressed by tradition and the status quo.
In the period after the Second World War existentialism offered people the means to reject convention and change their lives. It then became unfashionable by the ‘80s possibly because the liberation movements of the 50s and 60s had achieved so much in civil rights, decolonisation, women’s equality and gay rights.
For the Masters project I am using contemporary sculpture to bring this notion of freedom back into the spotlight once again. In the 21st Century we find ourselves controlled to a shocking degree, farmed for our personal data, fed consumer goods and manipulated by the media. People have become familiar to their habits and to mass-media, forgetting to stop and think long enough to question what is going on, resist intimidation and the general tendency towards auto-pilot. These are the factors that Sartre and Heidegger believed we could and should change.
Fundamentally – my current work is to underline that we all have freedom and choice and that we should exercise this in order to add value to the quality of every-day life.
Sentient l
Concrete, paper aggregate, metal
70cm x 70cm x 10cm
(with stand 160cm x 90cm x75cm)
Sentient ll
Concrete, paper aggregate
80cm x 90cm x 12cm
Sentient lll
Concrete, paper aggregate, metal
154cm x 48cm
Untitled
3mm Steel & fabric
1m x 2m