Divergent Practice

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Exhibition under way!

[divergentpracticechloejhiggins]

I’ve been looking at sexual violence and this idea of unwanted touch and how it affects us, turning something lovely into something that is feared. I wanted to create a series of forms that encapsulated my interpretation of the idea of void, this feeling of emptiness and the deterioration of our relationship with touch. I began the process with a lot of mark making and printmaking. Layering my fingerprint with ink on white cartilage paper, I felt it was important to keep the same dipping process to incorporate into 3D. I wanted to use wax represent ourselves in our skin and our fragility and vulnerability. Cutting away the at the exterior to reveal the layers forming fingerprint patterns within the interior to put emphasis on this fragility - using a mixture of both beeswax and soya wax for the desired colour and consistency, I wasn’t sure of how to display the pieces but upon laying them out on my desk in the studio it felt right to have them together but also separate to appreciate each one, I wanted to create lots of them as I have an affinity for multiples, I wanted to play with multiples and similarities, rather than having each piece look exactly the same as everyone’s experience and feelings are all different and valid.

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Photographs of final taken on Nikon D3200.

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Cleaning down my plinth, making sure any paint/charcoal marks are removed. Final forms have been carried into college wrapped in bubble wrap to ensure no abnormalities to the wax objects.

[divergentpracticechloejhiggins]

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Wax carving process using a scalpel, I decided to remove sections from the exterior to reveal the layers from that dip in dip out process from creating the objects form, exposing the inside on the wax replicates the form of the fingerprint which I have embodied into my body of work throughout the module, it adds an interesting element to the exterior and again re-emphasises it’s fragile structure.

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Leaving the wax to sit in cold water to completely set, I’ll be carving and cutting away at the exterior of these to ensure that the outside is just as interesting as the inside of the objects.

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Resorting to a larger component to melt the wax in, Bain-marie style as I didn’t want the wax to get so hot that I can’t stand the heat. Gradual heat until the majority of the wax is melting and the rest will melt from the residual heat, ready for dipping to create final multiples.

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Saved a spot for the exhibition!

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Melting the soya wax and the beeswax together to get the desired shade, process of dipping, sped up for obvious reasons!

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Wax work so far!

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Wax objects made from continuously dipping my index finger into the wax, same as the soya wax objects from a few posts ago, the plan is to combine both waxes and follow a similar structure for my finals.

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These have given me a few ideas….stay tuned!

[divergentpracticechloejhiggins]

Single finger dipped wax structures. With the fingerprints being exposed this time, I only dipped most of these around 3-4 times to try and create many multiples to again put emphasis on both the fragility of the wax and of us as beings, I think any less layers and it would have broken when trying to remove it.