MySpace

It may seem obvious but I’m really appreciating a studio…

As a theatre student (of research and directing) I am not use to the idea of a personal studio. In fact on the first day at Wimbledon when the studio was being allocated I was certain I would not need one and was willing to sacrifice my allotted area for a fine art student. How wrong I was. I have now begun to fully utilise my little area to give a focus to my working process, which is at times quite fragmented.

The Uncanny Gallery is a simple board of pictures that I consider being demonstrations of ‘uncanny’ imagery or at least that represent something that contains an element of the uncanny. This idea reflects the process of artist Mike Kelly when he was compiling an exhibition of uncanny sculpture and other visual art for Tate Liverpool. He organised his ideas by collect a vast range of images, compiling a type of uncanny spectrum from which to organise the exhibition. In turn I have created my own micro version to frame the vast amount of images that I am steadily collecting.

The space also allows me to consider the puppet heads for Love is a Dog From Hell from a new perspective. This may seem obvious but for a few months they have been stored away, having them mounted together allows me to see how they work as a set of three, and I can reassess the overall puppet aesthetic. It has already made me rethink the puppet's eyes. They are currently painted on the surface of the head. Although they work I am finding that when animating them the performer has to work extremely hard to maintain that the sense of life, the sense of fire behind them. I feel that the painted eyes will not be able to convey the depth of expression that the play requires. Therefore I have decided to insert a more realistic eyeball to each socket, a plastic eye that is made with layers. It is a simple touch but I think an important one for the success of these particular puppets, of whom I am asking a high level of ‘acting’ from.


A new addition to my growing collection of bodiless heads is an effigy of myself. This will be the head of my doppelganger I am currently building. This heads contains the plastic eyes that I mentioned above and they already have a greater sense of depth than the completed puppet heads.In Short, I am finding that the studio space is bringing clarity to my working process and I will be making sure that I always have access to a studio in my future practice.