Showing posts with label porcelain sculpture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label porcelain sculpture. Show all posts

Monday, 26 May 2014

'The Daughter of the Minotaur'

The female minotaur sculpture is next up in my series of posts discussing some of the ideas behind my work. She has elicited a huge variety of responses from those who have encountered her. Some quite sinister. Perhaps because Jesus with little children is such a familiar scenario.
 
 
 
 
She is actually an amalgamation of several ideas and influences. My father used to tell us how, as a small child, he was occasionally taken to visit an old aunt whom he was obliged to kiss and hug. It is a common enough childhood experience. He used to dread it. To his young eyes she has a wobbly cow-like chin and huge breasts which he feared may suffocate him as he was clutched to them! The Daughter of the Minotaur represents those characters and situations which convention (and adults) seems to approve and accept but we, as children, are really not so sure about. Sometimes it's all in the child's vivid imagination (as with my father) but unfortunately sometimes the minotaur is very sinister. 

In this second piece I have started to develop the minotaur's story. She is not an altogether sympathetic character I'm afraid.
 


Her age should mean she is revered but her circumstances are not very grand. She is an imperious creature, sitting in a rather dilapidated armchair, reliant on relatives (those she still has power over) to do her bidding. I have put her on the sort of trolley a child might pull along.



One day I will create a series of pictures featuring my minotaur.
(This is a little drawing from my sketchbook)
But I will continue to be intrigued by other people's interpretations of The Daughter of the Minotaur.

Tuesday, 20 May 2014

The Good Girl

A few people have asked me about the stories behind some of the sculptures which appeared in my post on photograhing my work.

I thought I'd start with this piece which actually has evolved a bit since I photographed it.



In several of the classic Fairy Tales the bad daughter/stepsister ends up with frogs and toads coming out of her mouth and the good girl (who is always the most beautiful one) has 'pearls and roses dropping from her lips...'
It's a good example of how moralising the tales are and when I was reading one of them some time last year I just thought oh!.. for heaven's sake....You really can have too much of a good thing!
So this girl has just been too much of a goody-goody.

The piece above is made with actual beads glued into a pile which was quite difficult and didn't really stand close inspection. However it was much admired on my shelf at uni so I thought I'd try and find an easier way to make more of them. Below is the latest version (although it's not such a good photograph)




I made a silicone mould of the original (destroying it in the process). Then I cast it in plaster. I painted it with pearlised paint, added a few extra beads and some roses. The legs are still made of porcelain.
I haven't got it quite right but it's getting there....

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Photographing Sculptures


We had a session at uni recently on photographing our artwork. As a result I have started to use the photography studio to take pictures  of some of my sculptures on a black background which makes them look quite dramatic. These are all high fired porcelain. They are a rather random selection at the moment as they are the sculptures which happened to be on my shelf in the studio at uni.