In a bid to freshen up ideas, I attended The Slade Summer School. I underwent a casting course where I discovered the beauty of concrete. This image is one of the experiential monstrosities I created while there. My studio, inevitably has casting materials strewn all over it, from which is emerging the occasional item which can be polished up and exhibited.
I was lucky enough to be funded by the Arts Council England for this course, the idea being it will support me to move forward with my practice. Having completed my degree only last year, Ive been using a lot of the same concepts and materials from that experince. Ironically I went to another institution, but only for one week, where I discovered new materials, which I now work with independently.
Concrete, my new best friend. Cheap, strong and diverse. I have been seduced by its reliable grey ordinariness.
Concrete is such a part of our lives. It keeps us safe and contained. Allows us to be vulnerable and spill out of ourselves when incased in its walls. We depend on it automatically, like its a secondary skin, holding our fantasies and hoarded objects of fetish.
Concrete is the barrier, the threshold between our immediate universe and the rest of the world. The containers it creates are filled with objects of wonder and grotesque thoughts which are far more interesting than any fairy tale.
