Artist's talk 2pm Saturday 16 August - all welcome.
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| copper |
Conversation between Wendy Howard and Margaret Roberts in The Bronze Age at
Articulate project space, Saturday 9 August 2014
In the beginning the
whole focus was metal, but I think if I was really thinking about metal I would be thinking about it in its liquid state because that is what is so remarkable
about metal - it can be melted and re-melted and its a liquid. But I
certainly would not want to do any forging pouring or casting.
What I am really interested
in is having something perfectly flat so its like it doesn't exist at all, its
like a mathematical abstract of some kind, like a flat plane or a straight line
between two points. So what I am trying to find is the smallest gesture to make
that makes it absolutely become a real thing in the world rather than stay that abstract
thing.
You're as mad as me. Why do you find that
interesting? I don't know if I could say why.
When I do it I try to
make a really simple action and everyone can see the simple action I made. So
you can perfectly see a flat thing and a simple thing being done to it, but the
end result is completely not that, it's like magic, its some kind of magic.
Is the magic somehow the physical world?
Yes it's something
about the physical world, and suddenly you have these things that are floating
and flying and doing this and doing that, its really fascinating. And suddenly
you have a real physical relationship to them as well.
The materials have their own
characteristics and limitations and language. Is that how they part of the
physical world?
I am curious to think
how far you can go, one step leads to another, how far you can go to still have
that effect without having to do very much at all, so it is more and more
transparent what you have done.
You make me remember the work you had at
First Draft about 1990 of a flat sheet of metal sitting on a stand.
That was a cut out
oval shape sitting on a musical stand, made out of cold rolled steel which is a
lot more resistant that hot rolled. It was heavier than the metal used here.
Does this work come out of that First
Draft work?
It's just obvious
that I am really interested in making that flat thing do something which is almost
like making it fly. In this case
there is a lot of floating going on in both things, and it's interesting how
similar it is to Brenda's works up on the Articulate upstairs wall—which are floating
little shapes with lots of space between them
I don't know what to
think about the fact that the whole idea came from archaeology but once you get
into it, to have little relationship to it whatsoever.
So why did you go for the bronze age context?
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| brass |
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| bronze |