From today we started on a journey to explore the idea of Trace via two sub themes: the body ("as absent & substitute", and "as energy & entropy"); and the everyday (as "found & provisional", and "as material & formal concerns".
With help from Susi and Alessandro I was able to use plaster and alginate to produce a few items, including some shells and my right hand in a special hand gesture in Buddhism. It was great fun and I learnt a lot by making mistakes and trials!
The artists we are studying this week are Isabelle Cornaro and Rachel Whiteread. I really admire Rachel's work, as she used industrial materials such as plaster, concrete, resin, rubber and metal to cast everyday objects and architectural space. Her evocative sculptures range from the intimate to the monumental.
In the evening we watched "Are that Made us: Rise - Of the Cities". With the industrial revolution transforming the British Isles, the cities and country were divided, and artists responded to the upheavals to lives and the landscape. I particularly liked the wallpapers designed by William Morris in the 1860s to 1890s. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production.
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