The cancellation of the Degree Show, due to COVID-19 lock-down, forced me to create a proposal for a physical Degree Show. Backbone is a collection objects and paintings that represent my artistic practice in my final year at Edinburgh College of Art.
This collection of work embodies an unfinished, even ugly aesthetic present itself as more ambiguous, intriguing and open ended than perfectly resolved, ’finalised‘ piece of work.
Through research I found, construction sites share this atmospheric– they are locations that physically represent the idea of shift and flux, of ‘non-places’ which are not fully functional. They are the “Backbone” that underpins urban advancement, but are also ever changing and impermanent, serving as motifs which mirror how we experience and behave in an ever-changing physical world.
My work embodies an awkward aesthetic as I balance the creation of finished and unfinished forms and structures. I often juxtapose the traditional use of building materials: such as plaster, concrete, tape & netting, with the use of mundane & low-tech materials: paper, canvas and papier Mache. This results in encounters where I have taken materials which have a very functional role and twisted them into something futile.
The ways in which materials are utilised to construct buildings present themselves as rich juxtapositions of incident and structure. This has led me to produce a series of paintings, drawings and objects that mimic the raw materiality of construction sites and create scenarios which are visually confusing and difficult to navigate through. It is this idea of claustrophobic confusion that lies at the heart of my work.
Ultimately this leads to the work being presented with both control and order, chaos and chance. The aim is to capture construction as a Utopian drive for something that will exist, but will never be ‘fixed’. In addition, my work seeks to prompt reflection on wider impacts of building - What is being built, and why? Who will it benefit? Myself & my community or private real estate elites? What are the consequences of this?
