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Found wood, paper, plastic, glass, wire, wellington boots.
Height 2.35m
Stars
5 panels; recycled paper, broken mirror, buttons, plastic, eggshell, elderberry, blackberry, oil pastel, varnish
| Christmas Tree from waste Home |
Found wood, paper, plastic, glass, wire, wellington boots. Height 2.35m Stars 5 panels; recycled paper, broken mirror, buttons, plastic, eggshell, elderberry, blackberry, oil pastel, varnish |
| From a found piece of wood, Phoenix
Woman, emerged over a period of 2 months in the summer of 2005. A pair of
wellingtons and a discarded black stand found in the park near Gillingham
Green allowed it to take human form. Carrying on from her SpineLine
Series, where the artist explored the colours associated with the various
bodily energy centres (or chakras) Serpentina delights in the
creation of a creature from found, street items. She has become the
embodiment of the 21st century; all the items that make up her separate
parts are an expression of the waste the artist feels is so prevalent in
our modern day life. The ‘embedded’ energy present in all these manmade,
manufactured items, causes the artist’s need to use available material,
discarded by humanity, as a method to demonstrate its possible alternative
use. It serves also as a reminder to humanity that we are merely one part
of the planetary system. Our Planet Earth is running out of resources and
energy very fast and we are destroying valuable habitats in order to
maintain our high-energy lifestyles. There is a powerful need to re-use
and transform existing objects rather than discard the old. Rising from
the waste mountain of rubbish piled high on our streets, Phoenix Woman can
be seen as both a symbol of our wastefulness and by rising from these
ashes, a hope for change.
|
Serpentina Stars |
| Energy flows through everything on the
planet; it cannot be destroyed, merely transformed. Science shows it
present in all forms, animate and inanimate; microscopic views show tiny
atoms with racing components. Turning my gaze away from this planet and
further afield coincided with meeting a local astronomer which led to the
creation of a series of 5 panels themed on celestial points of light in
the night sky. Serpentina researched the many varied shapes and colours of
actual stars on NASA sites to encourage children entering for the
competition to draw on nature as it is, not our diagrammatic 5 pointed
star. However, ultimately the star shape is a recognisable, tangible
identity in our culture and this led to accepting its shape but allowing
the material to suggest the varying textures of a world above our heads.
These panels work with the connection with eternal light which is a common
religious theme, the Star of Bethlehem imagery suggesting the arrival of a
saviour; the signal of change coming by the appearance of a new light in
the night sky mirrored by astrologers' belief in the power of planets and
stars on a natal chart; the fact that the closest star to Earth is
actually our Sun, a gloriously powerful source of light, heat and energy;
that humanity has navigated by stars since the earliest times, reflection
of and production of light by celestial bodies; the eternal optimism and
humility that one feels on surveying a night sky; each and all of these
have influenced STARS.
Thanks to Doug in Timpson's for the buttons in Star
2 |
provided some waste for this
exhibit.