Victorian College of the Arts - Theses
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Itemmurmur( 2022)murmur is an investigation into how sculptural works can be an effective tool to communicate personal narrative, and the connection, or alternatively, the disconnection, between written narrative and the concerns of materially-based artworks. The project will explore the implications of the sculptural processes of casting, breaking down and re-casting, together with the notion of biographical narrative as a tool for expanding upon, and contextualising, sculptural works, within the frame of fragmented memory, absence, grief, the domestic and the garden. murmur draws upon the use of found materials within the context of sculptural production, and the use of personal narrative, as a generative site for the development of sculptural installation. This thesis encompasses three chapters: Diagnosing a murmur, Developing a murmur and A murmur. Within these chapters, I attempt to address, and reflect upon, my sculptural practice and written narrative works. Throughout my practice, materials will appear, disappear and re-appear within my work over the course of many years, until these elements are rendered unrecognisable, or discarded all together. murmur comprises a sculptural installation that was held at The Victorian College of the Arts in December 2021. The installation included floor- and wall-based sculptural works. These sculptural works were made from a variety of materials, including coloured fabric taken from pillowcases; sheets; items of clothing; fragments of ceramics; and broken-down artworks. These items were cast in various forms, using various cements and plasters with coloured oxides. Alongside the cast sculptural works, the exhibition included hessian sacks which were hand-sewn together with blue twine and place in various groupings on the gallery floor, forming a patchwork carpet. A set of curtains were hung in one corner of the space, and in the opposite corner, a low, dark-blue triangle was painted, and then painted over with a white wash, the effect reminiscent of a faded horizon line. Floor-based slabs of granite were used in conjunction with cast sculptural works, and a worn wooden fence stood against the wall at the entrance to the space. Copies of an A5 saddle-bound publication, featuring a series of five personal narratives, were placed upon a piece of granite. This was available for visitors to the exhibition to take with them. The artworks produced in murmur aim to investigate the ways in which personal narratives, drawing on the domestic and the garden, may generate sculptural installations which embody a sense of loss and absence in order to generate an empathic opportunity for those who encounter the work.