Being a multidisciplinary artist I regularly look at other disciplines for inspiration, and over the years I have created a large body of artworks from glass sculptures to photography, written works and illustrations. I have lots of pieces I love and cherish for various reasons, but I wanted to discuss two of my very favourite past pieces of work.
The 'Brown Body' (2000) installation formed one part of the end of the degree show. The piece consisted of nine slumped life-sized glass bodies placed inside a canvas room, with text being projected onto the bodies. The work was based on a series of poems I wrote called ‘Circles’, about the awkward social situations we find ourselves in and our responses to those situations. The poem was broken down and projected onto individual handmade slides allowing the poem to cast shadows and distort through the glass bodies and onto the outside of the canvas room. This was one of my favourite pieces to research and create because of the amount of time I had to create and fully experiment with my ideas. Each body is cast individually from my own body and wearing a variety of different outfits, each piece being unique, with the textures and patterns of the clothing coming through into the glass. I found it exciting testing the projections out and making each one of the 100 slides by hand as allowed me to be creative with colours, the text and patterns that would then be further distorted by the glass.
The second piece of art I created, that I utterly love is this painting called ‘Silent Screams’ (1998). The piece was created using a variety of mediums including acrylic paint, coffee grounds, sand, resin, charcoal and a variety of other found materials. The piece started its life as a nude back in 1996; laid out across the entire length of the canvas. I decided the nude wasn’t right and painted over it and became a portrait, this still wasn’t right; I painted over again and again until I finally decided to paint ‘Silent Screams’. The painting was a response to a poem I had written back in 1995; an extract of the poem features in the middle of the forehead using Letraset transferable letters, covered in resin with parts sanded to conceal some of the words. I had a love-hate relationship with the painting, one day loving it to the point of obsession and other days completely detesting it, so much so that I wanted to put it out with the bins. In 1998 I had an exhibition at The Foundry, Hanley in Stoke on Trent and I showed the painting alongside some glasswork. This became the first painting I sold and firmly my favourite painting. I loved the use of mixed media, the earthy tones, the time I spent creating it and the love I put into it, as well as the size. It made me realise that I loved creating larger paintings and having that space to truly express myself.
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