As my research is in a stage of organic growth, some of these themes/artists may lose relevance, others are surfacing. It is a work in progress.

Themes:

My main concern is climate change and how we think about this planet we live on. I would like to throw some light onto the wonders of ‘nature’ and what we have now – it is what makes me both happy and sad. 

I am particularly interested in ‘organic’ forms and for me this becomes more curious when manmade materials and the organic form meld or there is the intervention of the human hand, as in all reality it is all we have known. Water in its many manifestations is also a theme for me as it is life giving and is now largely viewed as a commodity.

Organic forms both for their beauty and horror, lend themselves to dystopian futures…rhizomatic and bacterial growth, cell structure, growth and decay.  If you look at garlic, for example it is a strange bulbous form made up of segments; under a microscope it is made up of silvery rectangular cells. Sharp forms (like thorns and burrs) also have interest for me and often feature as the scary part of fairy tales in woodland or overgrown. What makes me think, in art particularly because there is the intervention of the human hand, is when an organic material is rendered into an amorphous ‘unnatural’ form or when manmade materials are made into ‘organic’ forms.

Water as a resource and source of wonder, looking at scarcity and pollution. Apart from the localized trauma of sewage in our rivers, tributaries, streams and brooks, and treatments, on a larger scale the damming, hydroelectric plants installation and the plumbing of aquifers mean that particularly in countries downstream water is becoming scarce. Waterfalls as– sign/symbol: construct of ‘nature’ other symbols of water for example ‘hydrangea’ even though doesn’t require as much water as was once thought, its name and association, colour and form;  moss – needs water to flourish even if can survive without.  How we choose to display water (as gushing, playful, show or still waters as in the middle east) and how we treat water resource or show of abundance).  clouds, rain. 

Idioms: Still waters run deep; in deep water; water under the bridge; you can’t take a horse to water…in hot water; a fish out of water; keep your head above water; treading water; dangerous waters; water off a duck’s back; test the waters; blood is thicker than water; come hell or high water………….

Water is often seen in rituals : baptism, cleansing, purging, raindance

Baroque

It was a time of great change: a new world had been discovered and the invention of the printing press meant that there was an information overload never experienced before.  This excess of information is directly relatable to the acceleration of our relatively new digital age.  Signs and meanings multiply and become diluted and overwhelming and previously known structures become fragmented and at the same time compressed.  Social and political discourse is obscured and polarised by the volume of information and narratives.  I aim to relay this parallel using a contemporized aesthetic of the baroque. 

Gilles Deleuze – The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque

Laure Prouvost – use of baroque folds/curtains/grottoes and excess; Contemporary breakdown fragmentation, overwhelm, glitch, interference, polarisation explored by Sarah sze – fractured worlds and seemingly mechanical sculptures

Pleasure gardens

Nature /artifice juncture and automatons. The use of water in parks/gardens/baroque continuity.

Gardens at Pratolino and Villa D’este. 

Renaissance Fun: The Machines Behind the Scenes – Philip Steadman

Kenneth Anger – Eaux d’Artifice.

Automata automatons were used throughout this era and within the pleasure gardens as a artform mainly of delight, but these automaton have real scope for relevance in our time, given the rise of the robot and the agency of things. From Guy Brett Kinetic Art – Movement produces the possibility of a work of art whose form is a process of growth.  This may be revealed through the spectator’s actions, linked to their movements, or it might grow of itself from within, responding spontaneously to the environment. 

Jean Tinguely ‘s use of strange mechanical sculptures and Theo Jansen’s automatons that work with the wind.

Art Writing:

Robert Smithson – The Collected Writings

Tai Shaini – Our Fatal Magic

Emily Pope – Montez Press

Materials & Experimentation

Continue to experiment with different organic and everyday materials, other 3D mediums that lend significance. Ephemera.  Using the weather to paint? Explore print methods and homemade inks, papers, ecoplastic. Using stills and possibly 16mm film reels; scaffolding.

Films:

Kin Dza Dza, Georgiy Daneliya – sci-fi aesthetic, commentary, satire, automatons

Eaux d’Artifice, Kenneth Anger – set in Villa D’este, commentary on excessive living, gardens/nature/artifice, water, semi-erotic use of water, Federico Fellini -generally for aesthetic, psychology and stills

Running Light – Lis Rhodes – water was starting theme runs into immigration – this appears to be unavailable generally but trying to source

Speculative Bibliography/Books:

Jane Bennett: Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things

Philip Steadman: Renaissance Fun: the machines behind the scenes

Gilles Deleuze:  Leibniz and the Fold

Bifo Berrardi: Phenomenology of the End

Zygmunt Bauman: Culture in a Liquid Modern World

Janine Randerson:Weather as Medium

Visit:

Hellfire Caves, West Wycombe

Stills: A few examples of the many stills I take