In common with many artists I know, I spend long hours online scanning through opportunities to develop & promote our work. I noticed the callout for this years' Southwark Park Gallery Open Exhibition on the Art Rabbit website. In keeping with much in this Covid-scarred 2020, this years' Open is being held online, launching today 2nd December.
The work I submitted for this selling opportunity is 'Fit For Public Consumption', a work I made back in 2015. I made it at a time when I was emerging from a period of intense general anxiety, and in a way, making this work helped me to come through that time and also made me a better & stronger artist. By coincidence, I completed the sausage on a fork part during the week when I finished 13 sessions with a local Counselling charity, and I took a selfie with the work as a record of my re-emergence into a world where I had finally found clarity and a sense of purpose again.
Sausage Smile 2015
I then went on to create a base for the work in mdf, which I finished with emulsion paint and wax. The sausage on a fork is held into the base with a tiny steel pin, which allows the whole section to remain upright. The exemplar for this balancing act was Brancusi's 'Bird In Space' - I recalled reading about how exacting the process was for him to balance the mass of the bird shape on a thin section at the base of the work.
Fit For Public Consumption
2015
Hardened modelling clay, silver-plated fork, steel pin, mdf, emulsion paint, wax
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