Research Unit 1October 2013 My current experimental work on starting the MA was the exploration of the shadows of dead disintegrating crane flies as line. ‘And the simple colourless church windows of her wings Will come to an end, in mid search, quite soon. Everything about her, every perfect vestment is already superfluous.’ A Cranefly in September Ted Hughes. Crane flies are considered an evolutionary success story, residents of the Earth for 50 million years, yet their lives are brief and limited to their only goal of procreation. I have collected dead Crane flies for two seasons, their breeding and small two-day lifecycle occurs in August and September.
Prior to my MA I had taken a few of the dead Craneflies’ empty physical frames and attached them to postcards. Although deceased they continue to create beautiful shadows. I capture the shadow with graphite pencil, reanimating lost movement and emphasizing their delicacy. They are then preserved in modern sticky plastic, a poetic preservation of lost motion and beauty. I am fascinated by their duality of being both repellent and scary to some while the delicacy of their beautiful wings and long legs evoke sentimentality in others…Daddy long legs. They are linked to the fascination of childhood, mythology and fairy tales. My choice of postcards was influenced by notions of what the potential of an afterlife could encompass. I was toying with the idea of the dead contacting the living…the frequent promise made to the loved one “if there is anything on the other side I will find a way to let you know’’ The postcard series represented an acknowledgement, an apparent not actual reanimation of the dead. Susan Stewart ‘On Longing’ ‘...in the subjects desire to experience mortality is issued the simultaneous desire to belie the content of that mortality and hence transcend it :to produce a representation with no referent – each sign as a postcard from the land of the dead, and on the other side, the longing mark that is the proper name. I have never exhibited this work so my starting point on my MA was the attraction of their shadows and I had amassed multiple dead and disintegrating Craneflies to experiment with. The origin of SHADOW, Middle English shadwe, from Old English sceaduw-, sceadu shade First Known Use: before 12th century Full Definition of SHADOW 1 : partial darkness or obscurity within a part of space from which rays from a source of light are cut off by an interposed opaque body 2 : a reflected image 3 : shelter from danger or observation 4 a : an imperfect and faint representation b : an imitation of something : copy 5 : the dark figure cast upon a surface by a body intercepting the rays from a source of light 6 : phantom 7 plural : dark 1a 8 : a shaded or darker portion of a picture 9 : an attenuated form or a vestigial remnant 10 a : an inseparable companion or follower b : one (as a spy or detective) that shadows 11 : a small degree or portion : trace 12 : a source of gloom or unhappiness 13 a : an area near an object : vicinity b : pervasive and dominant influence 14 : a state of ignominy or obscurity — shad·ow·less adjective
BERGER on Drawing ‘As I draw the model becomes defective. The image in my mind is marred by the marks I put on paper. And so because a drawing cannot quite be touched, ,because it shifts when I try to fix it on paper, because it does not simply transcribe something in the world, because it can never bring back what I once loved- because of all that, drawing is an intense expression of the defect of distance’ p112
Early experiments were based on a found deceased spider with my interpretation of a fake carpet fluff cranefly, the apparent spider silk is actually human hair.
 Ink on paper drawing of ‘fake’ crane fly and flatbed scan in sketchbook.
Tim Ingold ‘Lines a brief History’ Introduction to Lines. ‘What do walking, weaving, observing, story telling, singing, drawing and writing all have in common? The answer is they all proceed along lines.‘ Tim Ingold imagines a world in which everyone and everything consists of interwoven or interconnected lines and lays the foundations for a completely new discipline: the anthropological archeology of the line. Recommended at my first tutorial by Tanya Kovats.
Experiments with drawings in graphite (left) and ink (right) on different qualities of paper
Actual size A2
Etching with Nelson Crespo. Combined two images of a real and fake crane fly. Sketchbook. Rubbings of etching acetate on the left and printed Intaglio copy on the right. Below print in blue. Drawing individual real cranefly shadows in graphite on black.
Sketchbook : Ink on paper Craneflies caught in webs
My insects are returning to dust with all it’s associations and references. Dust, graphite and PVA on paper (sketchbook) Interest re texture. Is there any point in using tactile materials in a visual only art experience?  Is dust to dust too literal? Minimal dust drawing and graphite (Sketchbook)
Graphite drawings of Cranefly shadows on card : Scale insect life size Tanya commented during my tutorial of the wallpaper effect. I had only ever found individual craneflies but during my exhibition ‘Echo’ with The National Trust Knole House, Sevenoaks, Kent in October 2012 I found multiple Craneflies trapped during the act of consummation in spider webs. This combination of procreation and death escalated the poignancy of their short life span.
Changing Scale All my following experiments revolved around presentation and display issues. I felt it was a shift in my thinking from shadows to traces and an exploration of scale away from the previous tiny insect size mark making. I was unsure if giant insect shadows would still address the delicacy of both the line and poignancy. I decided the best way to experiment with the aesthetics of scale was to employ an OHP to project my intended drawing scale.
The best effects were achieved by projecting onto the ceiling. I was thrilled with the exquisite detail and the impact of them being back in the ‘sky’. I couldn’t remember ever having seen an artist select the ceiling for a shadow projection, then I remembered Cornelia Parkers Cold Dark Matter at Tate Modern in 2000.(See below) The day after ‘my discoveries’ with the OHP the visiting artist was Helen Maurier ! Helen Maurer BA in theatre and Fine Art Brighton. MA in Glass at RCA Jerwood Glass Prize 2003. I had to stay as my recent body of work has been working with the shadows of dead craneflies, A perfect shadow from a dead object, the traces left behind. I had invested time in experimenting with the tiny insects throwing huge shadows onto the ceiling. Coupled and caught in spiders webs the shadowed marks were extraordinary, ethereal and poetic. Now here was an artist I am unfamiliar with working with shadows and glass, how intriguing. Mesmerizing work presented in a warm and self-effacing manner. Maurer discussed her discovery through exploration and play; she is drawn to the spontaneous. ‘White Snake’ evolved as a video image of jet streams reflected in water, the distorted ripples creating a snake swimming through the reflected trees and greenery in a painterly manner. Maurer is a maker but does not want to fill the world up with ‘stuff’ so she tends to use miniatures that then become life size scenes via the intermediary of an OHP. The OHP disrupts causing an abstraction between object and projection.” Like drawings but aren’t” A 3D object becomes a 2D projection, an illusion.
Her introduction of mirrors enabled her to bend images, projecting onto multiple walls. There is no human presence in the work; they appear when viewers are caught up in the projections. Maurer commented how ”found objects are sometimes more playful” than the glass collections that go through the process of auditions as if they are actors. Maurer preserves the installations as film documents captured by a third party collaborator, she expressed that documentation as film is successful and is a full stop to the work. The installations are not kept. Maurer’s current show ‘Glass cat’ at Danielle Arnaud is programmed to be show at Wimbledon Space in early 2014. GLASS CAT 2 Wimbledon Space February 2014 ‘The exhibition comprises sculptural works that explore the potency of objects and the threshold between real and imaginary’
‘Prowler’ 2013 Table, lamp, (halogen light), glass, ceramic cat, motor.
‘Glass Fountain 11’ 2013 Table, lamp, (halogen light), glass, motor. This exhibition held a surprise, at no point in her lecture had Helen Maurier indicated her use of angle poise lamps or motors. I was expecting static imagery created by OHP’s. The mechanism of the illusion is obvious for the viewer to see and hear and yet is magical. First Exhibition in the Centre for Drawing Wimbledon December 5th 2013. I drew my graphite on black drawings from my iPad photographs, attempting to replicate the delicate markings of wing, leg and web with a very finely sharpened graphite pencil. I decided to show the Cranefly graphite on black paper drawings. Shadows revealing the delicate traces of consummation and death. My aim was to show them in an elegant linear hang that replicated the ethereal nature of the work.
I wanted them to look like a black empty paper from the distance. By using tiny metal clips suspended on fishing line I anticipated the ability of the paper to move with any passing breeze replicateing the flutter of the insect. I had completed three drawings and needed to select one.
Thoughts after the exhibition: I didn’t appreciate that 1 sheet of paper was different despite them being bought as a batch of 5. Tanya selected to use two of my drawings in the exhibition. I was unable to select the most developed drawing as it was a different shade. A valuable lesson in throughly checking your paper supports before you commence an intended series of drawings. Another lesson was the rubber marks catching the spot lights. I realised that the drawing marks I had erased actively enhanced the delicacy of the Craneflies construction. In future when working graphite on black I will retain all marks. The slight movement worked. I had aimed for a long elegant hang. The absence of a ladder meant that the drawings hung lower and I was then advised to shorten the fishing wire even more to bring the drawings into catching the spotlight. This shortened my elegant hanging height and had never been my intension. My aim was for minimal , discreet almost invisible marks but in the stress and lengh of the installation I mislaid my original thoughts. I should have painted the nails white to render them less obvious, disguised. This method of hanging would work well with my ‘postcard series’ Moving the work forward : Find high quality, dense black paper, book Nelson. ‘Drawings are only notes on paper….The Secret is the paper‘ Berger from Drawing on paper. Take high resolution images , book a photography session with Nick at the Observatory (See achieved large images above)
. “An idea,” she says, “appears in a minute – you have all these memories and things in your brain and they all get together. In a single second, you have the right picture. I don’t know if this idea will work. But I am hopeful.” Katharina Fritisch speaking on the day Hahn/Cock was unveiled on the fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Rattenkönig (Rat King)(1993) included in the Venice Biennale 1999, is her work in which sixteen 12-foot-tall black polyester rodents face outward in a circle, towering over the viewer, their tails bound together in a giant knot. Like all of Fritsch’s work, Rattenkönig is simultaneously seductive and unnerving. She often transforms quotidian objects or ordinary-looking figures into something new and strange through repetition and manipulation of scale and spray painted garish colours that are unexpectedly matt. |
