the line that defines

2015

 

The final installation of the year which in essence was an exploration of enclosures and what it means to be on each side of the border between the two.

This was my contextual statement...

An exploration of a material alive with references to the past, food, sex, and the medical profession
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A space which exists inside an art school, which masquerades as a white square, which comes with the baggage of preconceived notions and a history that spans more years than the space has actually existed

I am interested in the activation of spaces and creating an environment that invites interaction. Spatial interventions informed by previously inhabited spaces form the basis of my work whether they are physical or mental spaces. The borders between spaces, the thin veil that keeps two temporal sections apart, are one area of my investigation. They are the borders that create enclosures.

Latex is a raw material with meaning; it is loaded with art history, especially with the pioneering work of Eva Hesse in the 1960s. Outside of the art world, latex references the body, the medical profession, sex toys and accoutrements, and even resembles foods like pasta.

An enclosure can be seen to provide protection or it can be a place of confinement and control. It can be a nest or a sanctuary or a place of separation and containment. It is inclusion and exclusion. It is always defined by a border...real or illusory and exists as a site for the “mediation of physical and perceptual phenomena.”

 

Latex as a material to create an enclosure leans more toward the psychological aspects of a border with its fragility and inherent temporal aspects than to say, concrete or steel. With this particular installation it is the viewers who are on the privileged side of the barrier. The containment is not of the people directly but of the conditioned air that is pumped into the space all day which is in turn contained by the studio space. It confines and regurgitates the air back into the vents, a process that not only alters the temperature in the space but also the efficacy of the giant machines above. There is a sense of interconnectivity in the enclosures that relates to our bodies, our lungs, our life support system. It resembles the enclosures within our bodies that keep us alive and breathing.

 


latex, air vent. 2014