Spy Sea 2015 41x21x5.5cm wood, acrylic, glass, plastic and found objects
I have had my work selected for the Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery (ACMD) Acquisitive Art Prize, which responds to the theme Art in Science, Science in Art. There are a few exciting points related to this information. Firstly, the work is three dimensional or relief. It will still be hung on a wall but it is the first time I have ever entered a sculptural work in an art competition. Secondly, it is a science based art prize. I have an interest in natural history, geology, cartography and hydrology. Mostly I feel like I skim the surface without delving into anything of great worth, but this provides a starting point for further research and discoveries.
The statement I wrote for Spy Sea described my fascination with, and exploration of, classification systems, presentation methods of natural history collections and a somewhat romantic notion of the naturalist as a collector, explorer and documenter, scouring the natural world engaged in the pursuit of scientific research. My husband engaged in his own scientific scouring, discovering the spice rack in the front window of an op shop. The objects themselves are from my collection found along shorelines from Port Hedland, Merimbula, Portsea and Flinders, hence the name Spy Sea. They span a twenty year (probably more) period of collecting.
I began placing found objects in glass jars in my third year of bachelor studies, sometime back in the early 90's. It was also a time when cameras took rolls of film and you had to take them to a shop to be processed. I took panoramic photographs of landscapes (not on a panoramic setting because the camera back then did not have such a thing), but stood in the one spot and took twenty photographs, that when printed could be placed together, David Hockney style, to reveal the panorama. In addition I also collected whatever objects were lying on the ground around me. They might include plastic, wrappers and bottle tops from inner Melbourne, or shells, seaweed and fishing line from the beach suburbs. These objects were placed in jars, which then included a label observing the date and location.
That is as far a that project went. I never presented it for assessment or even discussed it with any of my lecturers. It was the presentation of such items that I was unable to resolve in my own mind (having not discussed it with anyone). I still own many of the jars, and now their labels look the way I intended them to some time in the early 90's.
I have found my work tends to be cyclical. Ideas and themes re present themselves a decade (or two) later. Anyway, I am very excited at having an object based work selected for a science prize and look forward to seeing it on the walls of St Vincent's Hospital.
David Hockney: Place Furtstenberg#1 Paris August 7-9 1985
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