Friday- last day!

Claire Barclay, Ideal Pursuits (detail) 2003
Installation at Dundee Contemporary Arts



Last day! The show looks great, really pleased with it. See photos. Painted floor, got all our statements mounted, title page final version printed.

Statements are always hard to write. I have always been consistent with my responsiveness to materials but nervous about pinning the work down too much. I like to keep things quite open-minded because that's the way I approach my work.

The sculptural baggage, interest in materials, in casting, failed casting, metaphor for a failed relationship, doesn’t quite live up to the promise.

Evaluation of show.

My final work reminds me of Claire Barclay's installations. They find their final form on site and are carefully composed combine a multitude of differing elements. She combines handmade objects with ones crafted to her specification. She improvises with these when she arrives at the gallery space. So the end form is unpredictable until this point. Her hybrid objects often suggest a particular function or allude to natural forms; however they remain elusive through their displacement. Barclay exploits the physical properties of her chosen materials – leather, canvas, metal, rubber or fur, for example. In using materials such as these Barclay encourages us to engage with her work on a instinctual level. An object’s form and context within the installation combine to trigger a widening range of associations, from the domestic and utilitarian to the fetishistic.
Many of these associations can be applied to my own work for Just to Say. For example, the work ‘an Exposure’ which is constructed out of a combination of found objects with more traditional art materials. There is a cut and sliced block of clay with a thin layer of latex painted on the top. The clay has a triangular piece of mirror which has sliced through the clay and remains wedged. On top of this sits a cast of a peeled sweet potato and sitting behind this is a long natural loofah. The clay and plaster cast are more often associated with art materials, but the loofah, mirror and object that is the cast have more domestic and everyday associations. I find this work very bodily and also sexual. The sweet potato is skinned and protruding out of the sculptural in a phallic position. The latex, reminiscent of skin, is also dripped down the back of the clay giving it a further reference to sex. The loofah, usually used for washing and exfoliating the skin, offers references to the naked body and a stripping away of an outer layer (through exfoliation), which is mirrored with the fact that the potato was peeled. This is why the work is called an exposure, all elements have a rawness to them which is unashamed and all have references to a physical action taking place which has the result of leaving things pruned and bare.


Using materials salvaged from my immediate environment. I like to think I have a good intuition for juxtaposition and seeing the possibilities within the simplest of materials.I enjoy finding ways to ‘recontextualise; , especially with materials which are incredibly familiar to us such as potatoes or massagers or candles. I am interested in the feminist perspective but I don’t necessarily enjoy all of the art. This does not mean that my work is entirely non-gendered however, as I am aware that some of the objects (in particular ‘always the pretty one’ and ‘dismembered) have a feminist aesthetic. But other works are more less directed towards a gender (the works in the copy shop). Having some works more overtly feminine than others isn’t inconsistent as I still think the works all possess and ambiguity and potential for narratives to be drawn. All works also derive from the same thinking and making attitude, it’s just the outcome was slightly different.

All works have a white component to them, whether a plinth, or object or structure. This imposes a certain unity between the body of work. Colours in the work are generally quite subdued, more natural organic colours but occasionally I throw in something more spontaneous such as bright blue chalk or bright red netting or a sash of hot pink.