My Creepy Crawly

MY CREEPY CRAWLY

During my third year at Michaelis School of Fine Art we were allowed to make our first self motivated work. For the first time since joining the art school, I was able to choose what I was going to make, what it was about, and how I was going to do it.

This project is an assemblage made of medical and machine parts.  It is about the immpression I have of 'living' on the dependence of a machine. This is an attempt to show how I see the fragility, isolation, restriction and solitude.

This formed in my imagination while lying in bed and thinking about how i could be lying on the bottom of a swimming pool looking up at the water surface.  My father, Charles Vincent, suffered from kidney failure for many years and I often thought of him being stuck in bed or connected to a machine that kept him there.

While imagining my bedroom/swimming pool I often thought about my Dad's condition.  When considering his dialysis machine that cleaned his blood, I thought of his machine being like a Creepy Crawly in my imaginary swimming pool that kept me company and conditioned my environment. Thinking of the loneliness and the constant beat of the machine, a comfort and a reminder.

This projected was displayed at my final year exhibition at Michaelis 2009.  It was installed with in the room to transform the room into some sort of a hyrbid tank. Entering through the air vent the pipes were suspended above and then lead down to the actual Creepy Crawly machine that sat on the floor. With it was a sound piece that was a mix of a heart beat and the sound of a scuba driver inhaling.  On the walls I had detail photographs of the Creepy Crawly pinned up as if for diagnosis, and four portholes.  These portholes are something of a self-portrait, as 'looked out' to the corridor of a hospital where I am standing.

'Untitled'

Figure Studies



These are some figure studies done during evening classes at Michaelis last year. 

These were very relaxed open classes and we fondly named our lovely model ‘Sultry Katrina’. 

I often went with my friend Tam – to be inspired by her art visit tamarinphillips.blogspot.com



'Sultry Katrina'

Tea Painting 2011

Out of wanting to paint earlier this year and having zero budget,

came a short lived stage of painting with tea.



 

'Ben Clown (detail)'



 Here I referenced a photo taken by Tam Phillips of Ben Winfield.  This is soon to be in the possession of Mr and Mrs Winfield.





'Some Small Quick Bucks'



Well that was the intention anyway,

but the gallery gave me bat and I got a real job.



This one lost its magic at some stage,
I think I made it one layer too dark and it lost the contrast it used to have



High School Art

Since moving home I've been uncovering alot of what used to lie forgotten or ignored.  So I thought I'd put up my findings to record it as it is still part of my creations no matter how old... These two paintings formed part of my matric portfolio. Originally they were part of a triptych but the third 'Samson and Dililah' is now in the posession of Luce Suckling.  It had a matching lemon peel on the left and a lock of hair on the right of the painting, and also set  against this foggy background.



'The Lennon Twist'



'123'
I can't remember if I intended on this title being read
'one two three' or 'onehundred and twenty three'

Where Dad Is

‘Where Dad is’

Sunglasses Case, Wallet, and Watch

Bronze

2010

This work formed part of my Graduation Exhibition from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2010.  The exhibition took the form of a two installations.  These were both inspired by my family and our situation of living with a sick father, losing our father and living without him.  ‘Where Dad is’ was part of ‘Installation Two – The Closet’.  This installation was a closet designed to illustrate the story of a couple, where the husband is terminally ill.  Their story unfolds as their cupboard is the tell-tale sign of their tragic situation.  The items in this space reference their joined struggle, as the resonances of their possessions do more than occupy this intimate space. The artwork was intended to be both portraiture and expression as I investigated private quarters that are usually the unseen, and therefore unconstructed places of a person’s space.

These three objects form a still life that embodies the loss of my father.  The title ‘Where Dad Is’ is a play on the question ‘Where is Dad?’.  These objects are the items one takes with you when you go out, and as my father’s health worsened they never left the house, like him.  So they were kept in the cupboard, and that is why I made them to be part of my closet installation.  And since he died his real sunglasses, wallet and watch, have become little parts of him for us to keep and remember him by.

This work is an example of my interest in the ability of inanimate objects in a room to communicate something through resonance and empathetic effect.  This interconnectivity and the potential that it holds is what has fascinated and informed my work for the past two years.

 

These objects were cast from 'one-off' hand calved wax models.  After being cast in bronze I 'treated' them with a range of shoe polish.