STATEMENT
My practice is based upon the fascination of the flesh and the inevitability of its deconstruction. As Midas Dekkers discusses, we are ultimately turning to dust as we live, always in a perpetual state of decline. So why should our bodily remains be preserved as relics in formaldehyde or methanol for art’s sake when the process of life has not ended with death – we must remember that our flesh will linger on to decay, and our bodies will grow to deconstruct. My work focuses on using teabags, Vaseline, and golden threads as materials to form flesh like absurdities which celebrate this state of decline, and capture decay as a constant process. The teabags provide a fleshy container for the oozing Vaseline which are barely held together by the precious gold thread. The lack of form that the objects possess aims to suggest that the fraudulent flesh that I have created is disconnected from its body, and therefore displaces them within their site; as any organ would be without its body. My work relies on this displacement to emphasise the grotesque, and ranges from ambiguous growths to developed foreskins, always maintaining its bodily content.
Dekkers, M. (2000) The Way of All Flesh. The Harvill Press: London, UK. (35)
Works
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The experimentation of teabags and Vaseline began as an attempt to subvert the relic status given to works of art in galleries. It is the consumable nature of art currently present in our society that drove my work on, and by using mundane, everyday materials that are often thrown away after use I intended to create unstable works of art that pointed a mocking finger at this relic status. Beginning the project as a bitter art student my work steadily, and also un-intentionally, grew and began referencing body parts and bodily fluids. The first sign of this transition was with the series of ‘Bodily Relics’ created in February 2016, this was the first time I acknowledged the bodily presence within my work, and also began to experiment with ways of display that might sustain the content of the body.
The body has become a key theme in my creative process, and I am currently referencing the pollution of bodily fluids with theorists such as Mary Douglas, and the concept of flesh via Middas Dekkers. Both theorist have had a significant influence on my practice, and I think this is clearest in the ‘Infected Sites’ Installations. ‘Infected Sites’ investigated the fleshy nature of the combination of teabags and Vaseline, and ambiguously toys with the possibility that they could be an infection of the flesh, but whose flesh? The site-specificity of the growth-like teabags was important in order to avoid ‘comidification’, which although does not fuel my work currently, is still something that is relevant to my practice. It raises the question whether the site itself is sick and begins to employ anthropomorphic qualities onto the studios. The teabags spread through the site growing more each day, and attempt to build something that is concerning to an audience through its displacement of being an organ without a body.
Running alongside the ‘Infected Sites’ project, I have also been working on a collaboration with fellow artist Jessica Smith, whose practice playfully comments on the stereotypical link between woman and the crafts and the domesticity associated with them. Jess explores sexuality through subverting the stitch, and manipulating the crafts with her current ‘Phallus Project’. Before our collaboration Jess had concentrated on the form of a circumcised penis only, which gave me the opportunity to make foreskins out of the fleshy teabags and Vaseline to combine both of our works. The collaboration lends itself to experimenting with the wet grotesque nature of my materials, and the non circumcised form for Jess, it grounds my own work more definitely within the bodily realm, creating a less ambiguous bodily form in contrast to my previous works of art.
Infected Sites Mar 2106
C.V
2016 Organizer of the University of Lincoln Postcard Exhibition
University of Lincoln
Lincoln, UK
Founder of the University of Lincoln Postcard Exhibition, promoting the art work of students and staff members within the city.
2015 Co-founder of Vonnegut Arts Festival
University of Lincoln
Lincoln, UK
Co-founder of student organized arts festival, which hosted 5 separate exhibitions around the city, all influenced by the sci-fi books of Kurt Vonnegut.
EDUCATION
BA (hons) Fine Art – University of Lincoln
September 2013 – September 2016
Queen’s Park high School
September 2007 – June 2013
- A* – Art
C – English Literature - C – English Language
- + 11 GCSEs including English, Maths and Science
EXHIBITIONS
May 2016 Group Exhibition, APEX, University of Lincoln Degree Show – Lincoln, UK
March 2016 Group Exhibition, Postcard Exhibition, Project Space Plus, University of Lincoln – Lincoln, UK
May 2015 Group Exhibition,Timeqauake, St. Mary’s Guildhall – Lincoln, UK
May 2015 Festival,Vonnegut Arts Festival, City of Lincoln – Lincoln, UK
February 2015 Group Exhibition,Signature Art Prize, Degree Art Gallery – London, UK
January 2015 Group Exhibition, Visual Aids: Postcards From the Edge, Luhring Augustine – New York
November 2014 Group Exhibition, Exhibition NOW! University of Lincoln – Lincoln, UK
February 2013 Group Exhibition, BIG Exhibition, St. Mary’s Le Wigford – Lincoln, UK
June 2012 Group Exhibition, A-level Final Show, Queen’s Park High School – Chester, UK
May 2012 Group exhibition, Young Gifted Artists in Tuscany, West Cheshire College – Cheshire, UK
CURATING
2016 Postcard Exhibition, Project Space Plus, University of Lincoln – Lincoln, UK
Lincoln’s Postcard Exhibition was a university based event which show cased both students and staff members works of art. I was part of a team who worked within Project Space Plus gallery to curate and install all of these works.
2015 Timequake Exhibition, St. Mary’s Guildhall – Lincoln, UK
Timequake was an exhibition in conjunction with Vonnegut’s Art Festival in Lincoln, which hosted the work of seven artists in an ancient Guildhall within the city. Being part of the curation team was an experience in how to organise, and be aware of how to use such an ancient site when installing works of art.
Influences
The key text that influences my practice is ‘The Way of All Flesh’ by Midas Dekkers’ which assists in the investigation of the deconstruction of flesh; currently the main theme in my work. However, I also use texts by Mary Douglas and Magrit Shildrick to understand the pollution of bodily fluids and the concept of organs as dirt when they are displaced form their original bodies, which Slavoj Zizek also contemplates. I also use the artist’s Sarah Sitkin and Felix Deac to inspire the ‘fleshy-ness’ of my own work, although I am not a super-realist artist the implications from their works are still influential to my own aspirations. The main artist who has continually informed my art work is Eva Hesse, whose work ambiguously references the body through its neutral colours and poetic lines, it chooses to suggest rather than to create something definite, and this is something that is key to my own practice.
Key Texts
Margrit Shildrick: Leaky Bodies and Boundaries (1997)
Mary Douglas: Purity and Danger (1966)
Midas Dekkers: The Way of All Flesh (2000)
Slavoj Zizek: Organs without bodies ( 2004)
Influential Artists
Eva Hesse