Artist Talks
Although I don't use photography within my work very often I do find it very interesting and see it as something I could use and will use in the future. During her talk, the first project she mentioned was called 'A Perfect Society'. This was about conversations that she had encountered when visiting Durham Prison. From the conversations she had with the woman prisoner's she took quotes and then overlapped them on her photos. However, when she showed us images of her work I was very surprised to see what images she has taken photos of. When she was talking about her work I had envisioned a photo of the prisoner alongside their quote; putting a face to the words so to speak. Rather than having images of the prisoners she had taken photos of children's toys. When I fist saw the combination of kid's toys and the quote from the prisoner I thought it was a strange combination. When I thought about it some more, I started to see the similarity between the toys and the quotation. If you read into what the prisoner is saying, you'll also notice the relationship between the two. When looking at an image of her work (left) the quote says: "You can't imagine how important photo's are - they come in the post and go straight up on the pin-board". The photo underneath the quote is of a family, where the father is with the two children and the mother is away in the distance. Hinting that 'Linda' is away in the distance (jail) whilst her husband is looking after her children and sending her photos of them in the post.
Arabella Plouviez
Alexandra Carr
Carr, who describes herself as an experimental artist creates series' of sculpture and installations from a range of different perspectives. Although I would class myself as a painter, not a sculpture/installation artist, i attended Carr's talk as i thought it would be interesting to find out some more information about other aspects of art that before hand I wouldn't find appealing.
"Empyrean" was one of Carr's installations that was my favourite and caught my eye. Whilst at Durham doing a residency Carr was researching the importance of light from historical periods in order to create this "larger than life" sculpture. Looking at the relationship between light and dark as well as the nature of light, through "Empyrean" you are able to see the geometric representation of the Medieval cosmos. The sculpture is made from hundreds of spheres handing down from the ceiling extended on various lengths of strings. The basis of this sculpture was derived from the medieval theory of which it was believed that the sun orbited the earth like a corkscrew. When first looking at this piece I thought it was mesmerising and pure, I felt the way the lighting reflected off the spheres created a beautiful correlation between the medieval theory and the artwork.