Poetics of Materials

I had a very productive and enjoyable week in the sculpture workshop. I was looking forward to being able to work in 3D again properly and I took to the brief immediately. It was good fortune that one of the materials it was suggested we use was cardboard, which I had been experimenting with and thinking about earlier in the course. I quickly made the decision to use cardboard over wood, having experimented briefly with the wood and deciding I didn't really like its properties - its colour, the inflexibility of it, how it splinters, how it cannot be manipulated easily - there seems more of a permanence and weight to wood, and this is not what I was after. (I think sometimes I am a bit quick to decide on these things, but there qualities to cardboard that interest me far more than wood).

The aspect of this week which I found most enjoyable, and which held my interest the most, was learning more about the material and exploring it quite freely. I really am drawn to learning about different materials, how they move, whether they break or tear, whether they can be stretched or squashed etc. This week has been a confirmation that I enjoy working in 3D not only for the aesthetic, but also for the kinaesthetic - feeling and making. In a similar way to Richard Serra using verbs, recently I have approached materials with a formula in mind: "cut into strips,fold, repeat". I have realised this in retrospect, I seem to do it quite a lot without recognising that I am.

I find repetition fascinating, with the sense of potential and growth that it automatically brings to a work.

 

I came to a bit of difficulty once I had run out the type of cardboard I was using - I found it hard to decide what to do next, whether to find more or use it as a stopping point and introduce a new material. I was thinking about some sculptures I had seen by American sculptor Justin Matherly in the Saatchi gallery just before I went to Venice. These combine two contrasting elements/materials - glass reinforced concrete and 'ambulatory equipment' - in a manner that was, I thought, effective and strangely beautiful. The concrete relied on the metal in its shape and positioning, and it was hard to decipher whether this was an awkward or a comfortable relationship. I was also drawn to how the structures, although different in many ways (colour, texture) had many similarities - as if somehow in their forced proximity, they have begun to mimic each other, and behave in the same way.

 

My aim for the next stage of the brief - to dress/paint/expand on the work we made - was to introduce a new material. I was looking forward to working with more than one material, and thinking about the relationship they have to each other.