???

Grotesque? Women?

A bunch of images to begin with...

Hedy Lamarr One - Shary Boyle

the Cave Painter - Shary Boyle

the Cave Painter, with projection

I love the colour and excitement added with projection!

Triumph of the Will - Shary Boyle

Moths Drink Tears - Shary Boyle

Regret - Shary Boyle

Judith Scott

I’m not sure where I first found out about Scott’s work, but I didn’t know anything about her at all, I just thought these huge wrapped up sculptures were brilliant.

photo by Leon Borensztein

This picture in particular! I don't know if it's staged or she's just hugging the work anyway, but I like that she's now wrapping herself into it almost, with this feeling of a connection to the work, even though in another book it says she would discard them after making them.

“Judith  Scott was a visual artist isolated by Down Syndrome and profound deafness, who achieved world recognition for her enigmatic fiber sculptures.  Born  on May 1, 1943, in Cincinnati, Ohio, she spent the first seven and a half years of her life with her family in a semi-rural community on the edge of the city, always accompanied and aided by her twin sister, Joyce, who served as guardian and interpreter.  However, it is Joyce who insists that it was Judith who was her guide and her teacher always.” (from the website Judith & Joyce Scott)

I’d been trying to work out what it is about her work I like so much, and I think it’s that the objects themselves are quite tense, tightly bound and knotted, but that I guess that Scott must’ve felt relaxation, happiness or calm while making them- or why would she have made them. It makes me think of how many people (myself included!) like knitting or crochet for the calming repetitive nature but also a creative outcome.

There’s a lot said in documentaries and books about people’s interpretation of how Scott must have viewed her own work, I’m sure how to express this properly, but I think I don’t want to assume anything about what she was trying to express in her art, and whether she was trying to or not – I just don’t know, and don’t know enough to want to start speculating.

In terms of how this might relate to my own project, it’s made me consider the ideas of pushing any negative feelings into a piece, as a form of therapy, cleansing or ‘exorcism’ of those feelings, leaving you feeling happy and calm, while you work is ‘holding’ any tension or fear for example.

I also found this interesting, with the focus on process over outcome:

“Since Scott attaches no lasting significance to the work of art (she discards each finished work), the repetition abides with the process of creation, not with the object produced. Scott often weaves goodbye to her work, as if to signal that the activity of creating is the remainder, while the work is dispensable…” (Davis, 2009: 208)

Things! to Look At

Here are a few pictures I've been looking at that might inspire something a little later.

This will all be jumbled up and disconnected, perhaps I'll find a common thread.

Jan Švankmajer

Fusion of real and fake. - his style of filming (and some of it seems to me quite usual for films 20-30 years old?) have this lovely quality of having everything in focus, but also everything is a bit too beige and mundane looking, added to really strange stop motion action.
I like the massive big heads of the puppets from Faust, as well as moments in the film such as when a man falls into card waves in a play, and it cuts to him falling in an actual lake.

Other Things

  

    

 

Kim Carter, Megan Mitchell, Annegret Soltau, Judith Scott, MC Wolfman, Harvey Roberts.

LucyandBart

Goes with the theme of Frankenstein type creatures and monsters and mutations. - Sort of costumes? Need a person inside then, and it transforms them into something strange. The materials used are apparent but it doesn't distract.