Material Experimentation

The last two weeks in the studio have been really exciting and productive. Having been told in my last tutorial to stop reading and researching and to concentrate on playing with materials, I have focused on exploring the possibilities of rope and latex. All Summer I had been thinking about covering a rope in something and then shedding it like a snake's skin, so this was my starting point.

It was suggested that instead of PVA I use latex, as it might give a better shape and has a skin-like quality to it. The result was fascinating to me. Having never worked with latex before, it was really interesting to observe how it works - its viscosity, how it can be applied to the rope, how quickly it dries, the colour change. I struggled at first to shed the latex, and made a lot of rips, finding that I was so eager to see the end result that I wasn't allowing enough time to do the process. This made me think about the pace of working, and how each material process demands a certain pace and state of mind. Reflecting on what I was doing actively helped me to do it in this instance, and I settle into a slower pace of working that better suited the material.

The process of removing the latex from the rope, slicing through the 'skin' and freeing it, fibre by trapped fibre, felt like a kind of scientific process. I was reminded of the 'What Do Artists Do All Day' episode with Polly Morgan, where she carefully shed the skin of animals for taxidermy, or even footage of surgery that I've seen on TV. I really enjoy the quasi-scientific feeling that I encounter occasionally in my work; I love the thought that through my own little obsessions I am making discoveries about the world. In the practices of Mark Dion, Cornelia Parker and Susan Hiller, I see similarities in how scientific processes are used for art purposes.

I am really pleased with the results of this experiment, the product is strange and fascinating. Although the 'skin' is thicker and more opaque than I had originally hoped, it has picked up the shape well and still very much resembles a rope. I was struck at once by how disgusting and repulsive the material was, outside and especially on the inner surface where it is both rubbery and furry at once. Everyone who has seen it has had a similar immediate and visceral reaction, describing it as 'gross', 'foul', 'disgusting' ...but still 'beautiful', 'cool' and especially 'interesting'. Last year I was looking at phobic materials and patterns and how something can at once fascinate/attract and deeply repulse. In one discussion I had, the word 'abject' came up, which is a concept I need to investigate further as I don't fully understand it.


http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abject-art

In initial research into 'abjection' on the Tate website I was interested to read that "the abject has a strong feminist context, in that female bodily functions in particular are ‘abjected’ by a patriarchal social order." In our crit, someone referred to my latex rope as an umbilical cord, which I suppose demonstrates these kind of associations. The abject is puzzling to me as I am not sure whether it is inherent, a material feature, or a subjective notion like beauty that exists in a work depending on individual sensitivities. I aim to investigate the idea further, looking at artists such as Sarah Lucas and Louise Bourgeois.