Saturday, July 2, 2011

Sculpture Gone Surreal.




 


         
    
Ifanyone remembers my efforts earlier this year at sculpting my own head  - with exact measurements - and plenty of struggle along the way (getting each degree of 360 accurate was a headache - no pun intended!) then this is what became of Part Two - abstracting the finished head in line with an art movement or some other element of inspiration. I chose Surrealism because I wanted to explore a recurrent dream I'd been having about houses - dreams where I 'd be in a familiar house that would suddenly reveal itself to have an unfamiliar room, doorway, hall etc. There were many variations but the constant was a sense of discovery. Sometimes it was disturbing. Sometimes it was exhilarating. I'd expressed this a while before in some of my illustrations, finding that my figures were ending up with houses atop their heads. It's a classic dream I suppose but what I didn't know while I was doing this part of the sculpture was of an amazing exhibition that had taken place in London at the Barbican about a year ago called The Surreal House which explored the relationship between Surrealism and the House - something I had naively been unaware of and thought was MY connection!!!!!
Hardly. The Surrealist Declaration of 1926 states: 
We have no intention of changing men's habits but we have hopes of proving to them how fragile their               thoughts are and on what cellars they have erected their unsteady houses.
The house was the Surrealists preferred metaphor for the psyche and unconscious as well as holding much  symbolism for Freud who put this to great use in his psychoanalysis.Once I had discovered the Barbicon exhibition and all the traditional connections between the house and Surrealism the exercise became so much richer. I ended up getting a lot out of it and maybe even decoded my own 'house' a bit along the way. Particularly fun was making the new eyeballs to reside in my 'unconscious' house and creating the 'blind spot' in the consciousness! The only down side? I've stopped having the dream.
PS A fantastic 30 second video for the Barbican exhibition is on You tube and worth watching here. It so wonderfully captures the eerie place of the house in dreams.







8 comments:

  1. Very, very good. Definitely. Love it. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are those tentacles growing out the back of your head?

    It's very validating to find that your independent creative idea is backed up by a whole movement. Proves you've either been learning subconsciously, or you're naturally on the same wavelength as great creative minds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh fantastic! What a great discovery along the way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've left you a seven things game whatsit on my blog. You needn't feel as though you must play along if they aren't your thing. Just wanted to say that I think your space is pretty amazing. A compliment on your radness.

    ReplyDelete
  5. *jaw drops to the ground*

    This is fantastic! I guess the old saying "Great minds think alike" has solid roots.

    ReplyDelete
  6. thanks for your lovely comment. i hope you are getting lots of rest and feel better soon x take care

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow - it looks very good. I love reading about your thoughts and research that has gone into making the piece. I am curious though - are you going to paint it, glaze it or leave it plain.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Minnado. Because it can't be fired (the armature being wood, wire and plastic bags!) it is destined to dry, crack and fall apart. It has since taken it's rightful place in the bin! :)

    ReplyDelete