A falling-down-building

Color Study

Stare Case

New Photos

As I walked down by the Lea one day...

What the tree thought

Waterlily

White fluff (1)

For the Gulf Coast (1)

For the Gulf Coast (2)

Night Sky

Flutterby

White Fluff (2)

Spaces and Thames

Installation View

Rub-a-dub dub. The Thames is your tub. Living in London, where the generations before us paved over nearly every square foot of land and walls of bricks form horizon lines, it is sometimes easy to forget that we are part of the geological environment. But despite our willingness to acknowledge it, we share a connection to the river Thames. Raindrops that we wield away with pocket-sized, preferably black umbrellas make it, one way or another, into the river. They slip off our skin, picking up dead cells, traces of our clothes, ourselves. They combine with the muck from our shoes, draining into sewers, which head river-ward. The land itself slopes that way. London and towns westward to Oxford and Swindon are within this massive area. The water that comes through our taps, which we use to sustain ourselves, to wash off the grime of the city comes from the Thames. So, we are all bathing in water that has touched other beings, has its own history, that has cleansed the land, our sorrows away. Rub-a-dub-dub. The Thames flows through your tub.

The art presented here for my final Foundation Fine Art show at Byam Shaw/Central St Martins explores this connection of the city of London to the river Thames.

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You are the Thames (mixed media sculpture)

You are the Thames (close-up)

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Thames River at Vauxall Bridge, 5/9/10, 12.46 pm

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Do you know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing? #1 (Digital print)

Do you know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing? #2 (Digital print)

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Erosion/Deposition (1/6 gouache on paper paintings, washed in the Thames)

Erosion/Deposition (6 gouache paintings washed in the Thames)

Installed!

Final Show Preview

My project is about the physical connection of the city of London (and its inhabitants) to the Thames. More details later.....

A sign to accompany an interactive sculpture.

Paintings waiting patiently for the tide to rise....

Taking a bath....

An unexpected swim...

Rough currents in the water

But all made it safely back to shore. Drying out in the lovely spring sunshine.

Salt sculptures, rusty printing, epic poems, and other artings....

The Ancient Mariner (installation of photos)

It's been a couple of months since my last post. Though I might blame Christmas, my fantastic city, a certain boy, or many other things for my lack of posting, I have actually been spending the entire time working on one project, about which I did not want to write until it was finished, installed, etc. It came into being through some reflecting I was doing in December during the Copenhagen climate conference.... and thinking about rising sea levels and that while many places will be completely parched, there are other places that will be completely swamped by completely undrinkable water. This got me to thinking about SALT as an artistic medium. I also looked at some maps of areas that might be swamped by rising sea levels, and it struck me that the shapes of these landscapes which might by the end of the century are very beautiful, abstract shapes. Which is much how the general public views global warming and sea level rise-- how can we *get* what it will mean to a Bangladeshi? I'm immersed in this conversation, and I can't fathom it.

Acrylic and vaseline painting of "submerged landscapes" along the US Gulf Coast

As such, I latched onto the idea of using salt as an artistic medium-- it's in the sea water, it's in us, it is (in the presence of water) ephemeral. I thought a lot about Buddhist sand mandalas-- the ceremony of making and destroying these gorgeous sand paintings as a ritual emphasing the impermanence of material life....

Based on areas along the US Gulf Coast that would be submerged with sea level rise of 2m.

But in starting to make salt paintings in the outlines of areas that would be destroyed due to rising sea levels, it all felt a little fake. I needed to play. This might have been inspired by an outstanding visit to the Camden Arts Centre to see Eva Hesse's"studioworks"-- a series of pieces that are not-quite-final sculptures.... but more just kind of experiments that are nonetheless stunning in their own right.

The Ancient Mariner

Designed to be viewed outside, this piece draws on numerous inspirations. On the surface, it is a piece about landscape, and rising sea levels. Salt is used to outline the areas along the coast of Bangaldesh that will be covered when sea level rises. However, it is enclosed inside an overturned bowl, buried by soil, and viewed through a peep-hole (the photos above were taken through the peep-hole).

Installation of the Ancient Mariner outside in the Byam Shaw courtyard

Noon/ "And all averred, I killed the bird that made the breeze to blow"

I was also much-inspired by the Caspar David Friedrich painting, “The Wreck of Hope.” When playing with some of the salt, I was reminded in a flash of that particular painting, and the ideas of the sublimity of nature, and nature’s power over man that are explored in that piece of art… and realised those are the same themes that I am exploring. Inspiration was derived from the French philosopher, Jean-Francois Lyotard, who believed that in art, there is an inherent sense of estrangement in simply looking at landscape (appropriate for the view through a peep-hole). I must also pay homage to Mariele Neudecker for her small little vitrine environments; she also plays with ideas of German Romanticism, although to different ends.

The Dead of Night/"Instead of a cross an Albatross about my neck was hung"

Finally, the title of the piece (and the source text for the photos and the “soundtrack”) come from "The Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge. When working on this piece, I could not get the lines “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink” out of my head. It so aptly describes the problem that people living in low-lying coastal areas may be facing in the coming centuries. I thought the story of the Mariner killing the innocent albatross. The loss of the albatross results in a loss of the wind. This seemed to be an apt metaphor for the way that we are treating our planet.

Dusk/"Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink"

Dawn/"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean"

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The Concept of the Dissolving salt cup

Many attempts were made at successfully molding/carving/evaporating a cup out of salt. All ended in failure.

Which is why this remains a concept. What follows is the text for the art “concept”, which following in the tradition of some conceptual artists, such as Sol Lewitt, provide “instructions” for the production of their art.

Water is an essential ingredient to all life. In its search for extraterrestrial life, NASA has the motto, “Follow the water.” In the face of global warming, many parts of the world will experience extreme water shortages. Other parts of the world, such as the coast of Bangladesh, will be flooded with sea water that is completely unpalatable, completely undrinkable due to its high salt content.Hence, this project.

Water is precious! It deserves a place of honour, of reverence. It belongs on a plinth.

What do we typically drink water out of? A simple cup….

Salt is intruding…… it is in us already……

A cup, constructed entirely out of salt is placed on a plinth.

The cup will be filled with fresh, pure water. Gradually, the cup will loose its internal cohesion, as the salt dissolves. What was once potable is now toxic to humans. Repeat, as necessary, until the cup itself is completely gone.

As part of my attempt at a salt cup, I brought a salt crystal lamp from a new-age shop to the sculpture yard and after subjecting it to various drills and chisels, it shattered. But it was interesting to take photos of, and was very struck how much like a man it looks here....

Prints

The Maldives (etching on steel plate)

I ran into Adrian, our print guru, one day and was telling him about what I have been doing lately, and brought up that I thought it would be interesting to do some print projects using salt. Rather than actually printing with salt, as I had originally been thinking, he suggest I use salt to enhance the rusting of a steel plate. So, I drew a design, derived from a map of the Maldives Islands, which will be completely submerged if sea level rises as expected. I made a print from that (above). I then sprayed my steel plate with salt water and allowed it to sit outside all night. I then made another print .

The Maldives (rusted)

The rust had at this point only slightly deformed the plate. However, after leaving the plate outside for a weekend, having sprayed it again with salt water, I found that rust had grown over almost the entire plate.

The Maldives (very rusted)

OK, that is *most* of what I made that I'm not horribly embarrassed to post. There's more, but my attention, likely like yours is flagging....

Denudation-- The Art/Science Project

"Denudation" is a sculptural installation, accompanied by a video expressing the breakdown of the human landscape, as seen through the lens of the genocide in Darfur. This project came to be through an "Art/Science" project that we were assigned in school, but something that had been swirling about in my head in some shape or another for some time. But as always, once the research started and the working began, it took on a life of its own.....

The sculpture hovers above the floor in an effort to express a sense of perspective-- our separation from the horrors of Darfur, and perhaps an inability to relate in a proper sense to our physical environment. On one wall (there will be) the movie play (though at the moment, it's just my laptop), and on the other, you see a painting in clay, charcoal, and leftover sediments from Loss on Ignition experiments I did during my PhD on sediments from Egypt. The designs are transcribed from the aerial views of destroyed Darfur villages (seen in the film). I find somehow the idea of a physical scar on the Earth's surface expressing human suffering to be incredibly powerful.

I built a landscape representing in a very literal sense the human landscape of Darfur(based on GIS modeling of populations in refugee camps-- higher areas are due to camps with greater numbers of refugees-- some have over 100,000. Appalling.). I built this sculpture (in a box I made myself!) using clay, sand, salt, and tar. I then acted to erode this landscape using earth, air fire, and water (inspired, a bit, I confess by games I've played with stream tables over the years!) The sculpture is left in each of those scenarios (and indeed afterwards in which it has continued to decay) subject to decay in whatever way is seen fit.

Would love to know what you think. I had a lot of fun making this and am incredibly excited about the idea of exploring various issues in this way and am curious if it resonates at all....