Over the course of this year, I have developed my exploration of the withdrawn elements of objects. Taking an Object-Oriented Ontology framework and applying it to how I work with the material has expanded my view of how things come into contact with other things. Something one could consider as a thing is a gap. I have sought to develop this theory by considering the latency of spatial relations. By latency, I mean that which is concealed by implication, inference or suggestion, and in being so, on the discovery, do these determiners help gain a critical analysis beyond the aesthetic realm. The concealment is inside and behind - sometimes alongside - the space between things. Therefore, through object placement, the literal can become oblique and nuanced.
This strange directionality produces new ways of categorising elements revealed through rigorous investigation of meaning. I have gotten to this point by experimenting and trying things out. In the workshops and studios, ideas evolve. Even with the best foresight towards an idea, things appear in the making process that turns the direction of the piece. It is these moments, for me, which produce richness and vitality, that something to an artwork.
That something, for me, provides the connection between making and doing. My research into Object-Oriented Ontology and Philosophy influenced By writers such as Hito Steyerl, Graham Harman and, more recently, Jacques Rancière has really helped me charter what it is the work is doing. This degree has formed my approach to making in a way I could not have accessed. Every studio technician, every peer, and all the tutors have, in one way or another, guided me as I developed my techniques and approached concepts. When I arrived here, I painted in a mimetic way that showed how scared I was to make mistakes. The exactitude of getting an image right was restricting my potential as a maker, a creator, and an artist. By following Rosie McGoldrick’s advice and trying different mediums and processes and drawing upon my notes and ideas in journals, scribbles and spontaneous moments, I discovered a whole new body of work in a material object.
This way of working puts my work on a solid footing as a sculptural installation. My Installations are based on investigations of what it is to be and exist and on what terms we get to do that. This inquiry allows the work to expand what we get from our relationship with a world in flux and change. I see my role in this process as the originator, but when I finish making, the work becomes a new conversation for others.
I look forward to taking what I have learnt in this degree into my Masters. And develop a way of bringing a criticality into what the work does and the spaces and questions it engages as a response. In amongst the failures, the tensions and the angst, there has been a flourishing that I could never have envisaged.
