#material language

[found-fabricated]

Material language- silver and bone on found wood, Stuart Cairns.

[found-fabricated]

Vessel- formed seaweed.

[found-fabricated]

Material drawings, material language, signs and symbols. Silver and found oak twig.

[found-fabricated]

Ephemeral Coast Exhibition 

Really pleased to be part of the Ephemeral Coast series in the Mission Gallery, Swansea as Maker in Focus this month. I will be showing a series of my implements/tools/utensils, some vessels and a few of my landscape drawings.  The show opens on from the 23rd of May to the 25th of June. 

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[found-fabricated]

Coil of lead wrapped with a leaf.

[found-fabricated]

The Riverbero project - Two Landscapes One Language, found objects, natural materials and fabrications, St.Martins Church, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

[gracehaighcontemporaryart]

Research and Development

Tutorial discussions concerning development in practice-

Illusion to something is really evident and an important aspect within the presented work, however the importance is somehow masked. There is something there that appears so certain of itself, yet also hidden: codified to the extreme of non-communication (which is compelling). Many of the glossary terms, that can been seen in the third image, are defunct. WYSIWYG (an abbreviation on the list 'What You See Is What You Get’) has links with illegal streaming sites (computer programs that are accessible - if one has connectivity, and the knowledge to do so).

An element of the subversive and the way that language has been 'transmorphed' appears to be taking place within the installation.

My appreciation of particular choices of materials (and in some ways, accidental/chance materials within piece - such as the wooden plank, become essential) is a recognition of the way in which I work: a methodology. Materials dictate what can be produced and can in some instances create blockages for productivity. However, the materials and the relationships between them, which are particularly placed, go beyond the written word creating somewhat of a map/language in its own right.

The uncanniness of the language being explored in my practice is both doffing the cap to, and making a total mockery of the language itself. Uncanny, in the way that it comes together in presentation/assemblage, alludes to be 'something', but the more one looks, the more difficult it is to get to what that ‘something’ is (which in itself is fairly uncanny, as it discombobulates a viewer, in the same way that an uncanny object makes one feel a bit uncomfortable). There are lines of communication, that one feels familiar with and pulls the viewer in, but no purchase can be found, reminding the viewer of the uncanny, through a totally different language (not myth, storytelling, figure, etc.) - this is something I want to tap into - this uncanny/uncomfortable feeling produced, in relation to technological modernity.

Slippage is in operation within the space: entering the world of AI as a context. ‘The slippage between/the transient between’ is developing as a theme within my practice (conjuring the feeling of the uncanny, without being uncanny in relation to Kitsch).

Further investigation -

- Investigation into the work of Ian Kiaer, who uses similar materials (e.g. plastic, found items) and works in a similar language - how he verbalises his practice is worth exploration.

- Sam Harris' podcasts with an online feed (e.g. The Future of Intelligence) - an ex- neuroscientist and modern-day philosopher who has an anti-religion, scientific and human outlook on future technologies, such as AI (of which he is particularly fearful about). He operates in the unknown point of current modernity (as I do in my practical exploration), and the cusp between events that are supposedly solid whilst experiencing them, but are actually transient when looking towards them/back at them.

[gracehaighcontemporaryart]

External projects

[Image 1] Acumen.  An accumulation of time spent - summer project work available for exhibition. 

I’m looking to apply for external exhibitions currently. Some issues have arisen:  [Image 2,3,4] -Due to my increasingly process based practice, the struggle here lies in what work I feasibly can part with (I hoard, therefore I am): I rely heavily on reworking the materials I use - the continuation of wire and paper categorisation. The text is cut up and divided into letter bags. The manipulated wire is woven into nest structures that hold the potential to enclose the paper cut-outs. I will continue to exhaust these materials as part of the exploration into material language, contingency and necessity, and order and chance. Hence, these ‘works’ are difficult to forcibly separate and eject.

-The pricing of potential exhibitions bares an issue for many students; how much is appropriate? This quandary applies not only to the competitions, but to the pricing of particular works that are to be submitted. For me this is an area of contention; what is it’s value?