past project - Architectural Mind

 Using the body as an interchangeable architectural site I tried to step back from myself and see my body not as it appears through my perceptions but to use it rather like an architectural object. This enabled me to use  photography as a medium to try and capture the emotional quality of the mind and the effects percevieved stigma or perceptions has on not only our mind but our physical body. By taking the idea of a 'label' that we do not necassarily choose to wear and literally placing them on the body i was able to make the body less dominate inwhich the thoughts and feelings of the mind became much more present.

my prezi

Fantasical Worlds where anything is possible

Little Theatre of Dolls by Raisa Veikkola and Frida Alvinzi

The little Theatre of Dolls are created out of doll parts and found objects immersed in a warm, pink, very 'doll-up' in style using puppets in aesthetically pleasing 'kitsch' environments. These works incorporate the nostalgia of the imagination in a fantastical world where anything is possible. Works include installations and live performances as well as numerous films on their website. Raisa Veikkola and Frida Alvinzi explore the depths of their imaginations indulging in the innocent of play in these highly feminine, detailed and intriguing magical worlds. 

Unearthed Potential

altered book by Brian Dettmer

The age of information in physical form is waning. As intangible routes thrive with quicker fluidity, material and history are being lost, slipping and eroding into the ether. Newer media swiftly flips forms, unrestricted by the weight of material and the responsibility of history. In the tangible world we are left with a frozen material but in the intangible world we may be left with nothing. History is lost as formats change from physical stability to digital distress.

The richness and depth of the book is universally respected yet often undiscovered as the monopoly of the form and relevance of the information fades over time. The book’s intended function has decreased and the form remains linear in a non-linear world. By altering physical forms of information and shifting preconceived functions, new and unexpected roles emerge. This is the area I currently operate in. Through meticulous excavation or concise alteration I edit or dissect communicative objects or systems such as books, maps, tapes and other media. The medium’s role transforms. Its content is recontextualized and new meanings or interpretations emerge.

- statement by Brian Dettmer

Laurie Simmons - Geisha Song

Laurie Simmons most recent work includes the use a 'Love Doll' inwhere she transforms her own home into a 'Dolls House' and uses the doll as a giant toy depicting a diary from day to day as 'she' becomes more familiure with the space and the environment. 'Geisha Song' promotes the same quality of sadness of her earlier works but engages adult fantasies  in a seemless reality which is neither home nor theatre. Her works are quite feminist in focus indicating to the fake, 'Plastic' icons in the media today but in a playful subtle yet meaningful way; after watching the 'Geisha Song' you feel sympathy and compassion towards the 'love doll' in a very realisticly human way, forgetting she is in fact just a doll.

Brothers Quay

Probably most famous for their animation 'Streets of Crocodiles' although most of the Quay Brothers animation films feature puppets made of doll parts and other organic and inorganic materials. These beautifully dark, moody yet somewhat highly emotive animations are created using by the use of a series of 'miniture' sets (although not life size some are in fact quite large), Most of which have no spoken dialogue and therefore highly reliant on the music.

I have admired the Quay Brothers works for quite sometime, highly captivated by these quirky and somewhat distrubing animations that pocess so much life and prevoke not only an emotional quality but a sense of experience. For the Light Night exhibition (2011) i was able to view these magical creations in person, fascinated by the tremendous detailing of these carefully crafted works and left with a feelings of pure inspiration.

Frida Kahlo



The Broken Column (1944)

Artists such as Frida Kahlo used visual analogies and metaphors through text and illustrative paintings. Her artworks were often considered unconventional in subject matter for the 1940s due to these somewhat surreal paintings often depicting internal organs outside the female body. This not only relates to Frida Kahlo’s interest in science and art but can are symbolic representations of her emotional life experiences; traumas associated with miscarriage and accident related health issues. Her public artworks have combined a traditional Mexican method of artistic practise alongside metaphorical and symbolic Christian Iconography, making them appear surreal where the figures are suspended in vast imaginative scenes.  For example The Broken Column (1944) is a self-portrait with clear metaphoric reflection regarding Kahlo’s health and the pain and emotion she bears but it is also referencing the Crucifixion of Christ; she is naked and alone, the skin punctured with sharp nails.

However in her personal journal Frida Kahlo’s self portraits express anguish and pain of deeply felt loneliness, appearing more human than that of her public works. They are highly contrasting in the sense of her journal being private and only for herself clearly reflects her emotional psychic compared to the public works which have a strong element of self control. She is conscious of the perception of self through the eyes of the observer and they hold an element of feminine mystery; distorted windows into the artist’s soul? This honesty in her journal perhaps is an indication to the criticism of female artists and their progression up until this particular time. I find myself asking the obvious, why were these highly emotive intimate portraits, exploring identity, purposely hidden within the protective pages of her journal? Perhaps these artworks are an honesty of self that the world was not ready to understand? Frida Kahlo is often associated with Virginia Woolf, using expressionism as a means of a story in an immensely emotive and complex way:

“Who used mental illness, psychiatry and her husband to fashion for herself a life of her own choosing (madness) was her property, her treasure, her identity she transformed into the triumph of literacy-psychiatric immortality.”

(Szasz, T. 2006 My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage of Virginia Woolf)