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Inquiry: How can nature and the human-made intersect?
Title: Wither
Dimensions (h x w x l): 16.5 x 3 x 10 in
Date Completed: Nov 7, 2021
Idea: The expansion of human civilization replaces nature with the synthetic, leaving withering and suffering in its wake.
Materials: Driftwood, white acrylic paint, white paper, hot glue
Processes: Glued scavenged driftwood, painted white to represent the synthetic, cut & rolled white paper to make wilting/decaying grass
Inspiration
Artist in Focus: Henrique Oliveira
I took inspiration from the wood works of Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira. He makes large-scale installations out of recycled wood fencing and boards, a reference to the temporary wood construction fences he sees around São Paolo where he lives. Oliveira uses weathered wood as his primary medium, and out of this, he makes bizarre organic sculptures and merges them with clean, white architecture.
I aimed to take material and conceptual inspiration. I planned on incorporating white into driftwood to emulate his art style. His art is often described as "tri-dimensional", merging painting, architecture, and sculpture. What inspired me was the juxtaposition of the smooth, clean white surfaces and the rough, organic wood. It inspired me to convey the relationship between the synthetic and organic in an abstract way.
His pieces have a weathered feel and the white paint is usually applied very gesturally. But, at the same time his pieces have a cohesive, harmonic style, which I aimed to capture in my own piece.
The meaning behind is pieces are often a reference to deterioration and decay. I aimed to turn this literal theme into a metaphorical one by making the deterioration represent the destruction of nature by human development.
Citations
“Henrique Oliveira: Tapumes.” Rice Gallery, http://www.ricegallery.org/henrique-oliveira.
Maur. “Henrique Oliveira - Site Do Artista Henrique Oliveira - Www.henriqueoliveira.com.” Henrique Oliveira - Site Do Artista Henrique Oliveira -Www.HenriqueOliveira.com, http://www.henriqueoliveira.com/.
Baitogogo | 2013 | Palais de Tokyo, Paris - France
Desnatureza | 2011 | Galerie Vallois, Paris - France
Planning
Slide 1: My inquiry was the natural vs. the human-made, so I planned to show this through the material, metaphorical meaning, and juxtaposition. I was trying to evoke a feeling of sadness or gloominess, and the sense that the sculpture was slowly transforming.
Slide 2: his is an early conceptual sketch of the piece before I acquired the drift wood. I had planned to follow an S-shaped structure. The ends of the sculpture would be painted white. I also had the idea to taper off the ends of the drift wood into simple primitive shapes to represent modernity and the synthetic (I would revise this later on).
I planned to pull this off by working out the composition first, securing the structure, brushing on the paint, and lastly adding the details. As for the scale, I planned to make a medium-small sculpture since I already had an approximate idea of the size of the driftwood I would use.
Experimentation
The use of driftwood in my art was the first time I used wood in my art. Since driftwood had this signature flowing, organic structure, I wanted to see if I could play off the natural form of the spindly driftwood while adding elements that made the entire composition more visually interesting.
I tried out different positions to attach the driftwood to each other. My goal was to find the composition that was most visually appealing and cohesive. To achieve this I had to think of creative ways to match up the grooves and indents of the each unique piece to fit well with each other.
During pre-planning, I also had an idea to add wilted and decaying twigs and grass at the base of the tree as if it was being plagued by a disease. I was partly inspired by how corals bleach into a white color when they are under stress, most typically due to elevated temperature. I decided to use paper, a material that I hadn't used before in my works, to achieve this.
Process
I scavenged driftwood from a nearby pond.
First, I cleaned off the dirt, and soaked it in water to get rid of particles and impurities. I then baked the driftwood in an oven at 130 degrees Celsius for an hour to dry it out completely.
Next, I experimented with different compositions by fitting the driftwood together in different ways. Once I found a composition that I was happy with, I secured the pieces with hot glue.
After the glue had dried, I started painting the sculpture, starting from base. I applied a thicker coat at the bottom and gradually used less paint as I moved upwards to create a value gradient. I gesturally dry-brushed towards the top to highlight the detail of the wood grain and blend the intersection better.
To make the grass, I folded paper multiple times and cut parallel half-strips. Then, I rolled the paper up and folded the blades outwards to make each bushel.
Reflection
Given the simple nature of the piece, not a lot of planning was required. I also had no control over the form of the driftwood segments, so hands-on experimentation with different compositions was more practical than on-paper planning.
The small scale of my piece and rigidity of driftwood also limited my ability to fully manipulate the form. Oliveira had much more freedom with form as he had smaller pieces to work with and a larger scale.
But my goal was not to mimic his work. I merely captured the style and aesthetic essence of his works in mine.
One thing I had difficulty with was making the paper grass blades as thin as possible. But the scale made it hard to do so; therefore, they came out a bit thicker than I'd like.
However, this was the first time I used paper in my works, and I really liked how it was a very forgiving material. You can cut it, twist it, fold it, or roll it to make the form and texture you desire. Therefore, I plan on using paper more in my future pieces.
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