the sudden sleep, 2022, stainless steel, cast aluminium, copper,

Kira Freije - Online Perspective Talk

One of the goals of my work is to get people to reappraise their relationship with objects, to reimagine them in ways that challenge the viewer. What I loved about the work of Kira Freije is that she creates work that ask people to examine human relationships using various methods of metalworking, welding, bending, cold forming and glassblowing. She talks about the relationship between the physical body and conflicted mind. There are parallels here with my thinking about conditioning and how we react to familiar objects when they are presented in new and exciting ways.

'the sudden sleep’ 2022, does this in a way that excites me. The use of the realistic human legs attached to what looks like a giant spring and chimney hat creates what she calls a poetic assemblage, something that has rhythm and balance, but at the same time has an undercurrent of something else, something darker. She talks about ‘desire concealed’.

I want to do the same with my work, I want it to appeal firstly in a more superficial level but keep that undercurrent of meaning and message. It needs to create an emotive response

She also talks about her process and about the setup of her studio that I found helpful and informative. Particularly I liked that she encouraged us to start our own library of references.

December’s Crit

For the December Crit, I prepared three pieces of work, individual pieces, intended to be discussed in conversation.

The first work (‘And then they were something else’, 2022) is made of recycled plastic trays displayed directly on the floor, painted manually with red acrylic paint, and organised into a rectangular shape. The trays are recycled from my own household waste.

The second work (‘the limbo’, 2022) was made of recycled, red painted water bottles, secured by their own weight between a pillar and a wall.

The third work (‘precious’, 2022) was also displayed on the floor, made of seven copies of a smashed can made of wax and plaster. Displayed on a board covered in chicken wire.

The materiality of the plastic waste is very important to me, and I was pleased to see that the conversation around the work followed my intended meaning. My intention to consider positive ways that recycled materials might be re-used or reinserted in our day-to-day living, was understood. However, it made me realise that my intention was a little too clear and this was confirmed later in the Crit.

In conclusion the Crit provide me with clarity of my most interesting aspects of my works that I intend to develop further. The conversation between the link between the second and third works as a duo, air and compression would be interesting to investigate further.

Crit's exhibition view, December 2022: and then they were something else; the limbo; precious