RETURN TO OLDER WORKS
SELECTED PRESERVES, 2006
Details
Installation of related works. Installation dimensions variable.
Tickle Holes 2005
5 samples of white cotton containing shotgun holes embroidered into Ayrshire Whitework floral embroidery motifs, wooden embroidery hoops, shelves. Dimensions variable.
Preserves 2006
Wooden shelf and thirty jars of apple jelly made from apples from Isaac Newton’s tree. Variable size.
Conservatory 2004
Fragmented porcelain skeleton engraved throughout with line drawing of red Fucus seaweed, wooden shelves and glass. Dimensions variable.
The Velocity of Drops, Copse 2004
Set of six colour photographs
Edition of 3
33.5 x 33.5 cm (each)
Black, White & Shades of Grey 2006
Set of two color photographs
Edition 1/3 to 3/3
187 x 126 cm
Schutzpantoffeln (Protective Slippers) 1999
A pair of hand-made slippers made from Kevlar
37 x 12 x 13 cm (each one)
Medicine Cabinet (Dessicated) 2006
Ten dried, pressed and framed plants representing those illustrated in The History of Plants According to Women, Children & Students from Significant Notes on the History of Plants by Leonard Fuchs, 1542. Dimensions variable.
61.6 x 48cm framed
Medicine Cabinet (Bleached & Dessicated) 2006
Ten bleached, dried plants, pressed between glass sheets, representing those illustrated in The History of Plants According to Women, Children & Students from Significant Notes on the History of Plants by Leonard Fuchs, 1542. Dimensions variable.
Photography: @FOTOGASULL
DESCRIPTIOn
Selected Preserves is an exhibition of work mainly from 2004 - 2006, which explores one of the artists ongoing concerns – the preservation and conservation of objects organic and inorganic. These objects are then displayed in ways which refer both to formal methods of display in museums, in botanical illustration and forensic science but also in everyday domestic situations.
Black, White & Shades of Grey
Two photographs from an ongoing series. A white birch sapling has been planted in the vicinity of trees discolored by a harmless though unsightly fungus Aspergillus Nigrum (produced as a by-product from a nearby Whisky Distillery) Over time the white tree will gradually take on the black color, the process being documented at regular intervals over the course of several years. The contrast between the black and white trees registers healthy and pathological specimens, and signals the processes of decay within the body, an overriding anatomical reference being the branch-like networks of the body, bronchial structures in particular.
Schutzpantoffeln
This piece was made at a time when many works were produced in collaboration with ballistics experts in the police and army using shooting to make the work. The artist was living in Berlin at the time and both the title and the form of the work (protective slippers) refer to the felt over - slippers donned by visitors to historic houses and palaces to protect the ornate floors from damage. The fact that they are hand-made from many layers of Kevlar (bullet-proof fabric) questions whether the viewer is in need of the protection rather than the floor.
Preserves 2006
This installation uses this seasons apples to make a batch of jelly, a quality of the apples used were obtained from the tree at Isaac Newton’s home, Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire, England or its descendants. The tree is associated with Newton´s greatest discovery, the Theory of Gravity -Why should that apple always descend perpendicular to the ground. Why should it not go sidesways or upward but always to the earths centre?. The laborious process of making jelly to preserve the fruit and thereby the story, offers a very practical, domestic take on the mighty scientific domain.
Conservatory 2004
The damaged human body is central to the installation of ceramic pieces. A laborious manufacturing process has led to the production of several hundred fragments of white Limoges porcelain decorated with traces of a red plant-like form. The fragments remind us of small pieces of porcelain found at the seaside which often retain a hint of their original shape and function - usually parts of teacups, bowls, spouts - but which are distorted and worn completely smooth by time and the sea. These little fragments are not only extremely desirable, tactile and collectible but are also full of pathos – reminders of lives lived and now destroyed. Yet despite destruction of the ‘original’ the fragments remain ‘collectible’ and desirable (though outwith any value systems, besides the personal)
In this case the ‘original’ is a human skeleton which has been cast in porcelain, engraved with a pattern adapted from a 19th Century engraving of a seaweed, then reduced to fragments and carefully ‘weathered’ before being fired. Although not immediately obvious we eventually observe the occasional recurrence of forms which take us back to the ‘original’ – the ends of ball and socket joints, teeth and vertebrae. As well as recognising the beauty in destruction we are reminded of the enduring qualities of even the most vulnerable of objects, the human form.
The Velocity of Drops, Copse 2004
This is the most recent in the artists on-going series of works using watermelons smashed in unlikely surroundings. The piece developed around the idea that, using forensic methods, a reconstruction can be determined from examining blood drips and splashes left at scenes of crimes. In this case the environment is a foreboding copse of blackened trees in the environs mentioned earlier in Black, White & Shades of Grey.
Tickle Holes 2005
Four pieces of white linen, originally from the same white bed sheet which was shot by a shotgun to produce a random pattern of small holes. A floral pattern has been determined in an area of the fabric, attempting to impose an order onto the chaos of the bullet holes, suggesting the potential to construct something beautiful from an object which could be deemed to have been destroyed. The pieces of material are cut roughly to the shape and scale of the middle section of a childs christening robe. The type of embroidery used (Ayrshire Whitework) and the pattern are traditional in the area of the artist’s home in Scotland. The title is a familiar, local term used to describe the hole left where the material could be tucked in if the child were a girl and left outwards for a boy, thus making embarrassing questions regarding gender unnecessary.
Medicine Cabinet – Desiccated / Bleached and desiccated 2006
Two versions of ten plants described in Significant Notes on the History of Plants by Leonhart Fuchs; most of the plants in the two versions of Medicine Cabinet grow readily as weeds at the roadside. Each one is described in the Medieval Herbal Significant Notes on the History of Plants by Leohart Fuchs which was the first modern account of the potential use of plants in medicine. The 10 plants depicted were selected as they were then believed to have properties which could induce spotaneous abortion – in all cases apart from Juniper this bears no relevance to modern medical thinking and many eg Calendula are now prized for healing properties.
From Selected Preserves, Information sheet