I am delighted to have begun my artist residency this week at AirSpace Gallery in Stoke.
‘matter resolves itself into numberless vibrations, all linked together in uninterrupted continuity, all bound up with each other, and traveling in every direction like shivers’
(Bergson, 1990:208)
I wonder if there is something about my relationship between the physical nature of making, the materials I use and the journeys I make on foot. Just as when I am walking, the journey to a place of pause is the key to the experience and connection to place. The images, which have revealed themselves during this first week at AirSpace have developed through a process of drawing and material investigation, considering and bringing together elements from the last years experiments to create lines that meander, connect to each other but also that connect to negative spaces.
When we seek to enter into a relationship with materials and movement we allow ourselves to question what we think we already know about material properties/techniques and their behaviour. Through the making of site-specific artworks, the conditions for a new understanding is also created and allowed to emerge. This first week I focused on being in the gallery, allowing myself to be still in the space, using combinations of technological tools and traditional drawing I wanted to consider the invisible rhythms of the space itself.
Processes of drawing, which I have used throughout the project created a starting point, I used tusche (specialist drawing ink used in Lithography) poured directly onto Lithographic stones and ceramic plates allowing the environment of the building to determine the resulting imagery. Projection of motion sensor images captured during dowsing walks onto the gallery walls allowed reconsideration of scale and layers of imagery. To explore this idea, semi transparent hanging material panels are being created. Drawing using a soldering iron reconstructs the projected data points building a relationship between the eye, the body and the hand. The intention is to hang the panels in the window space of the gallery allowing the transfer of imagery into the space via light projection.
I am seeking to disrupt the usual linear reading of the land when walking. Specifically, I am hoping to use this time to produce drawings, which pause, displace and allow our perception to consider a mode of sensing that is more attuned with the multiple ways in which the world is active around us. I am particularly interested in exploring Bergson’s perceptual theory where he suggests ‘ungraspable’ material forces and intensities participate in our perception of the world, even if we do not perceive them.
