Thinking About Encounter

When I think about how my work is encountered, I’m unsure about how I imagine it. I’m not sure if, for my degree show I want to just have some gifs playing on a loop. I want it to be a bit more than that. I think that it needs to be more visceral, especially seeing as I choose to make my illustrations 3D and textured for that exact reason.

I had the idea to put my scenes into boxes that people can peer into. I also like the idea of having the top levels of hell/consciousness be high up, so you have to climb a ladder, or go on tiptoes to see into it, and the bottom layer being on the floor so you have to crawl on your tummy to see in. I’m reminded of that bit in As Above so Below where the entrance to hell said “And they shall be made to crawl on their bellies to enter the kingdom of darkness”. I think it’s referencing the part of the Bible where God curses the serpent to crawl on it’s belly.

But how to organise the boxes?

I thought about these lay outs, but I realised if I wanted the boxes to be any bigger than 30cm tall, the whole structure would be in excess of 8 ft tall, which I think might be a bit silly, also a bit dodgy safety wise…

This was my final design before I realised the height issue! I’ve since decided that all the levels  are going to be the same size, because of time and logistics, and price of wood. I’m just going to make nine boxes the same size, and think about how to display them later. I think at the moment just shelves at different levels, or plinths around in a circle.

I’m imagining something like the piece of work Scenes for a Future History of Ornament 2015 by Phoebe Cummings. It was in the Fragile? exhibition in The National Museum Cardiff. There were loads of cardboard boxes with clay sculptures inside.

You’ll also notice that I have colours next to each layer of hell/subconscious, and this is because I want to have the colours bleeding into each other so that it is like a cohesive journey.