Post-preview

(Above) Eight 2.25m towers with phosphorescent concrete tops. In the darkened space a sound recording taken down Taylor’s Shaft plays: drops and gurgles from the flooded mine.

I am going to edit this post a bit more later, but for those who have been in touch wanting to see the work but being unable to make it, here are some images. The opening showcased a few pieces; the residency involved far more…!

50cm high towers in another room sit in a ‘landscape’ of flour. Made up of 7.5 billion specks, there is a piece of flour for every member of the human race.

Mylar blanket, the same area as the largest room, is raised up by rods the same height as the ceiling. On the walls are screen-prints of sinter from Tywarnhayle.

Internal

The Frontier towers seen through the structure of Tectonic. Each length of wood is the same height as the ceiling in Back Lane West. The Mylar foil sheet is the same area as the floor of the main room it inhabits.

Preparation

I am re-familiarising myself with Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust, Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines and Anthony Storr’s Solitude.

Above

Concrete looms, above head height…

Phosphorescence

Trying to manufacture my own phosphorescent paint, with varying degrees of success…!

Triptych

Should the three rooms of the space be seen as a triptych?

Paradoxes

I have been working with dark light and white blackout. A frustrating day in which, on reflection, I have been asking the wrong questions.

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I am drawn to the idea of work becoming one through joint interruption of the space. A dialogue through inferred (compositional) connection.

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Rudolph Laban

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Alfred Watkins

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Hawksmoor

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Started the day with Besh O Drom: Ayelet Chen, ending it with Keith Jarrett: The Survivors’ Suite.

 

Additions

This is an old image of mine, taken on Dartmoor, near Yes Tor. The structure, which I believe is a military store, crowns a peak and is at once both alien to its landscape, through form and material, and sympathetic to it, through colour. There is nothing vernacular about it, everything functional.

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On 14 December 2015, BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes recorded a fascinating report into the militarisation of coral reefs in the South China Sea. This includes compelling interactive ‘before/after’ satellite images of the islands, now heavily concreted.

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I have a collection of Tywarnhayle mine waste. This is stored according to rock type, location of discovery and appearance.

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Today I cast a concrete extension to one of my favourite (I know…) pieces of minewaste – perhaps a runway or jetty. Whatever it is, it is a mismatch on the one hand, and yet on the other, completely sympathetic.

Salt

Fascinated by salt as a symbol of wealth, the etymological root of salary, as a valuable commodity and as the cause of pollution and the destruction of habitats, I have grown these crystals on a small steel framed tower which has corroded as the crystals have grown. The salt crystals are largest at the base of the legs, and are reminiscent of flamingos in Lake Natron.

Field trip

Trialling a field trip for GROUNDWORK, around Tywarnhayle, with James Fergusson.