Sculptili. Materiales. Conceptu

Myself and a group of five other Fine Artists organised and put on an exhibition exploring materiality, sculpture and the conversations our works have with each other in a clean gallery space.

This exhibition worked well as a sort of practice run for our degree shows, allowing us to explore how our pieces worked in conjunction with others’ and how a large, blank room affected the viewing experience in comparison to seeing the work amongst studio clutter.

Setting up the show came rather naturally and, without consciously curating each piece that went in, the show as a whole was very cohesive and we received lots of positive feedback on the curation and how well the works of all the artists worked together. Working together in this way also started conversations of our paths post-graduation. Some of us planning to remain in Cornwall following graduation began talking about starting an artist collective. This could be something that helps to keep alive the studio culture that germinated and grew during our time at university, keeping close fellow sculptors and like-minded artists to fuel each of our practices, maintain a support network and even have a collective to use to set up projects, apply for funding and develop our careers.

Seeing our work in a curated display at the Fish Factory in Penryn helped me to start to envision the display of my work in the degree show. I liked the differing heights of each work, some being displayed on the floor, others on plinths of different heights and some work hung on the walls. This method of display seemed to fill the space more effectively than a more traditionally ordered display, with plinths of one height, equally spaced out for example. Initially I had thought that in order to create an effective degree show I would have to create much larger scale work than I have previously, however this experience of exhibition making allowed me to see the benefits of using plinths for smaller scale work. I feel that much of my practice works better on a smaller scale, making the viewing experience much more intimate and, I would argue, more immersive than some much larger scale pieces. With a smaller piece displayed on a plinth, the viewer can come close and really look at the details and appreciate the quiet statement of the work, the plinth aiding in making the work stand out.

The plinth itself is something I would like to explore the possibilities of further. I would like to experiment with less traditional plinths, less of the white cube block trying to be invisible in the gallery space, and more of attempting to make the plinth a key part of the way that the work is read by audiences. Using blocks of stone, scrap wood and other very material, tactile items as a sort of alternative plinth, will enable the plinth to interact with the work it is holding up which will likely be made of some of the above materials.