Lockdown continues in the UK and whilst the guidelines were changing around spending time outdoors, I was also pondering my response to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts‘ Artists Programme brief.
Organised by Learning Programme Manager (Adults & Young People), Nell Croose Myhill, the spring Artists Programme was themed around ‘Situations’, inspired by Lucy R Lippard’s magazine-exhibition for the July/August edition of Studio International in 1970. Each artist in the programme would give and receive a situation – I was prompted with ‘Reimagined Playscapes’ from Francesca Cant and passed on ‘the place I go when I’m making’ to Hannelore Smith.
For my ‘Reimagined Playscapes’ prompt, I was thinking about the lockdown situation, playfulness, empty streets and resource-limited responses – the result was a game of hopscotch!
As well as responding to this brief, I’ve been continuing to work outdoors and use natural and found materials. Whilst working up a new series of remote resources, I starting playing with nature brushes and painted a series of blank ink nests using sticks and grasses. I also found some long cut grass that I’d added to the wild corner of my garden the month before and had since dried, so I started to form this and fresh grass into nest-like shapes.
Whilst making these I was thinking about the idea of a nest as a place of home, but when painted in black, it felt less comforting and maybe more trapping. I enjoyed replicated the form in different materials and look forward to continuing this train of thought…
nest / wreath / scribble / circle
