These sculptures once again explore blurring the boundaries between objects and material, human and nonhuman, playing with different ways of merging found objects and creating new, entangled, intriguing forms from them. They were all created by assembling random selections of my found objects/materials and then casting the resulting form, in doing so reducing them down to one organic, undulating mass rather than individually distinguishable components.
I developed the idea for these small, self-contained plaster pieces while watching an artist talk by Quarry House Collective, particularly inspired by the work of Elle Brown, although the landscapes of Cat Horton are also reflected in the work. My own previous paper mache experiments also fed into the idea as I noted at the time how I enjoyed the way the paper reduced the new conglomeration down to one rippling mass, something I looked to build upon here. I therefore wanted to combine the two – the still, intimate quietude of the plaster pieces along with the reductiveness of the paper mache – to create small, almost cross-sections of an imagined materially-ambiguous landscape.
The first piece I made was the middle piece of the three seen below, created simply by arranging items in a small box and casting the resulting surface. I chose to cover the items in a layer of cling film when casting so as to create one cohesive surface (rather than the alginate getting lost down all the gaps), but I did not intend for this to in any way aesthetically affect the end result. However, as can be seen below, the subtle creases in the cling film were picked up by the alginate and plaster and so gently ripple across the surface of the piece. Although unintentional, I did enjoy the awareness this brought to the surface, almost becoming suggestive of a skin perhaps with something moving beneath it (perhaps even hinting at something like a Lacanian veil, an idea I have touched upon several times before, e.g. here and here), and so sought to heighten this a little in the later two. I also chose to use smaller objects in the latter two in order to create a more detailed, busy surface to pick up these ripples.
As with my ‘ghost sculptures’, I enjoy the subtle, moody photography of the white sculptures against a white background, heightening the focus on form that the lack of colour in the sculptures themselves already brings. The close-up photography, as can be seen below too, really emphasises how these can be seen as tiny landscapes, the cling film ripples suggesting vast mountainous gullies and peaks.
As well as the more self-contained boxy pieces above, the following sculpture was made from a loose pile of material:
I was experimenting to see if the cast might appear to have been taken directly from the beach floor, rather than a curated pile I had made myself, and therefore might be more suggestive of an ongoing surface reaching out beyond just that of the sculpture. To an extent I think it does, yet also it seems a little flat and oddly regular in its composition; perhaps in future I should attempt to actually take a cast directly from the beach rather than replicating it myself, particularly as this would start to increase the role of the nonhuman in the work.
Below is another attempt at a similar piece, this time with the aim of creating a little more variation in height and again using smaller objects for more detail:
I do feel this one was more successful in these ways although there is still a certain degree of regularity from the piece that might be different were I to cast directly from the beach. This piece is also the largest of the series, something that is good to consider as I do often find myself instinctively always working at a similar scale. It would be fascinating to create a vast piece that covers the entire floor of a room, heightening a sense of a lurking, lively material presence bubbling under the surface.
I did also try casting straight from a surface (as seen below), creating an indented version rather than a replica of the original, but I found this to be less successful in suggesting something bubbling and pushing up from beneath the surface.
Anna Harris 