Evaluation statement

This was a challenging year for me, both physically and mentally, as I continued to battle with Long Covid, a dislocating knee and arthritis, which all affected my studio practice. Painful and awkward they are, but ironically these conditions helped in my exploration of coping with tense situations. From this, I developed a mantra that helps me personally and with my practice: recognise strengths and weaknesses, step back; rest; contemplate; look at the situation anew; go forward.

Regarding the development of the major project, I kept returning to Freud and Laing’s theories on the effects that family and friends have on the psyche, and Klein’s view that children express their anxieties through play. As I worked in the studio, the psyche of the child was always in mind as I tried to recapture their innocence, freshness and natural curiosity – the same qualities that Dubuffet sought with outsider artists, and that Matisse’s paper cutouts showed, as well as a sense of fun.

Studio days, where much of the time is spent watching paint dry… and thinking, reflecting, evaluating. Photo Shirley A

The project’s context came from comparing my own childhood experiences of how I coped in uncomfortable situations with how I handled the Covid 19 lockdowns: as a child, I would make dens to create my own safe space to contemplate the world; as an adult restricted to the home and recovering from Covid, I undertook small, gentle origami projects, which became pop-up sketchbooks that were encased in recycled mailer envelopes. The garden became my sanctuary – my grown-up ‘den’ – and from this I introduced a horticultural aesthetic to my project.

Supporting my academic reading were the novels I read through the Covid lockdowns, which included childhood favourites such as Robinson Crusoe, The Secret Garden and The Little Princess, biographies of real-life pioneers (Cougar Annie), as well as a mix of Japanese literature such as In Praise of Shadows and the more contemporary People from My Neighbourhood and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, which tie in with my interests in Japanese culture.

In converting all this into a major project, I considered scaling up the pop-up books into a giant one, and experimented with other paper-based packaging materials. Throughout the process, dilemmas constantly plagued me: Do I carry on with hand-sized pop-ups? What about building a pop-up book that is in itself a huge sculpture? Do I have the giant pop-up on its own (and possibly involve it as a performance) or, continuing my previous projects, set it within an installation? What is sculpture – what is an installation? Paper or cardboard – wallpaper, multiple envelopes? I thought I knew what the characteristics of these materials, so why don’t they do what I want?

The last query was key. For the Winter Show, I’d produced a cardboard trees installation to test it as an environment for a pop-up book. Although it was very much a work in progress, I was pleased with the reactions of visitors as they walked through, using their whole bodies to view the pieces – up, down and around. The big problem I had with these flat trees was in their making: cutting through cardboard’s fluted sections for several weeks triggered an arthritis flare-up that continues today. Another frustration was trying to control them, as they kept flopping over when I moved them, leaving creases that diminished their strength.

Cutting through cardboard to reveal the flutes. Doing this for prolonged periods is hard on the hands. Photo Shirley A

This coincided with another challenge that was beyond my control when I came back after the Christmas break and found the studio in chaos and that decorators had damaged my work. I was at a loss as how to continue my project. But, after a period of contemplation, per my mantra, I switched medium to kraft paper, thanks to visiting lecturer Julie Hill, who uses paper to make monumental structures. This marked a turning point in my practice: while kraft paper has a similar bland aesthetic to cardboard, it is lighter, easier to source and much more malleable. In turn, I felt lighter, energised and once again excited to make works on a larger scale – without pain.

Organised chaos. Turning this into a work of art - or is this it? Photo Shirley A

This was also aided by being given a studio space in the main seminar room, due to my mobility issues. This was a privilege that I took advantage of, expanding my designated area as my work got bigger. But here, timing and planning were key, as I had to share the room when lectures and workshops took place, which meant that I had to stop the noisy and awkward activities of crushing and painting 25m rolls of paper, then waiting for them to dry, before more crushing and moulding them into shape. So, most of the big, noisy stuff was done on Saturdays, when I had the room to myself.

Doodles in a work notebook contribute to the archive of thought behind the project. Photo Shirley A

My key takeaway from LMU’s BA Fine Art course is understanding that my practice is intertwined with everyday life, which began with the ‘Ways of Seeing’ module in first year. There is no separation. Whatever I do and see, or happens to me will affect my art, whether that’s health matters, studio disasters, going to exhibitions, travelling to Japan, taking a walk around my neighbourhood or pottering about the garden.

Penge meets Songenchi… although I’m sure this contorted tree wasn’t the result of centuries-old manipulation by Buddhist monks. Photo Shirley A

South London’s spring palette, inspiration from the local neighbourhood. Photo Shirley A

Sad as I am to leave the safe nest of university, I’m looking forward (with some trepidation, admittedly) to a new beginning. Having documented my work in notebooks, blogs, sketches and maquettes will be a good foundation for whatever I do next. During summer I shall be researching residencies and looking for a studio that I can share with like-minded artists – one that will cope with my ever-expanding practice.

Deadline looms: Phyllida, folds and a little help

All of a sudden, “it’s all about filling the space”1, to quote Phyllida Barlow, the grande dame of grand, sprawling, sculptural installations. The week leading up to deadline day has been one of frenzied clearing, painting, collating materials and panic, which has really put the pressure on me in preparing a large site-specific work. I’ve worked relentlessly over the months, but still it’s not been enough. It’s been frustrating given that the large seminar room is also the area where the painting equipment is stored, so there is no way that I could get painting the last rolls. But finally the OK was given and we can start the installing. I have three and a half days to do this. Plus the evaluation statement. Plus this last post.

Sketch of the entrance to Spring Crush. Photo Shirley A

At the end of the first day, I’m almost in tears with the pressure of having the prime space in the show. It’s got to be right. It’s got to fill the space. After a pep talk with Johanna, Clarissa is assigned to help me. She is an absolute star: not only is she a hard, diligent worker, making suggestions about positioning the pieces and reminding me of things I’d forgotten, her sunny personality lifts my spirit and my energy levels are boosted.

Armature for the main structure, which will be sited at the back left of the installation. Several layers will be added, giving heft and grounding its presence. Photo Shirley A

One of several iterations in bulking up the armature and adding other packaging materials to give different textures. This model needed heft, so the decorative outer elements were removed and plain layers added before deciding on the final, coloured layer. Photo Shirley A

We both have fun with constructing the pieces – rolling, unrolling several times – damn this paper wanting to do its own thing. “Sculpture unfolds and refolds and unfolds again. It’s extremely restless.”2 With twine, staples, we get it under control. But it takes time. There has to be a better way of managing the work. I’ll be better able to assess this in reflection later in the summer.

A maquette of Spring Crush’s floorplan. Photo Shirley A

Working out the positioning of the structures and their individual shapes using the maquette and images taken of the Songenchi and Saihoji gardens in Kyoto. Photo Shirley A

The bulk of my work this year has been not actually producing any finished work, it’s all been about the preparation for the final install. So, when I follow up a passing comment from an MA student that I should look at The Fold, I learn that my work is a physical manifestation of what Deleuze described as baroque. While I have over the past few months folded, twisted and crushed the rolls kraft paper using the top half of my body in preparation for painting it, the real physical job of creating my structures comes now, when my entire physical and mental being is involved in their creation. In my head: sings “… the Baroque trait twists and turns its folds, pushing them to infinity, fold over fold, one upon the other.”3

This wallpaper remnant was constructed with the most simplest of folds - wrapping it around my lower arm and then tucked in - and stayed in position without needing any moulding. It won’t be used for this project as the pattern doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the pieces, but it’s definitely a material for a future project. Photo Shirley A

As I write this, I’m having a break from the install and panicking a bit. Time to submit this, finish the install, clear up and go. I think I owe Clarissa a drink or two.

1. Alistair Sooke and Edith Delaney, Phyllida Barlow: Cul-De-Sac [London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2019] p.10.

2. Alistair Sooke, ibid. p.10.

3. Gilles Deleuze, Tom Conley (trans.), The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque [London: The Athlone Press, 1993] p.3.

Son et lumiere

When providing an audio element to a work, I needed to be careful that it doesn’t tell too much, so the viewer can relate to it themselves. For the project, I decided to combine a sound for its context and another to mark the making process. I always knew that the ‘voice of the child’ would be represented – the fervent whispers of a young girl reading passages from her favourite books, in bed, under the covers with a torch, as I often did as a child. For this, a friend’s daughter obliged and she didn’t even bat an eyelid when I asked her to follow the method school of acting – in bed, under the covers and reading the stories by torchlight.

Crushing kraft paper, an integral part of the process. Photo Shirley A

The second track came to me while crushing the rolls of kraft paper to give them bark-like texture. I’d never before considered that makes of kraft paper could sound so different, but one had a particular crispness – the heavy-duty 90 gsm roll from GP Globe Packaging – that actually sent a shiver down my spine.

Not being particularly techie, I used online software Audacity to combine the seven tracks of narrated stories with a 5-minute recording of me crushing the paper. Audacity is simpler to use than Adobe Premiere (I was introduced to this bewildering software a few years ago and have not used it since) and with the help of a Youtube tutorial – How to Use Audacity to Record & Edit Audio – I was able to fine-tune the varying audio levels and export the file onto an MP3 player. This will be played on a loop at two points within the installation – one at the entrance to the work, and the other in the secret garden area, hidden within the main tree structure. Patrick had suggested using resonance speakers but, as these need Bluetooth to work and the room’s computer is to be removed, I went for the two-speaker plug-in system that Naomi Groves can supply.

I’ll play around with lighting, but I am veering towards having the room’s lighting dimmed and just one spotlight trained on the secret garden area to emphasise the painted structures. I’m also considering using another two lights for the exit path, although this could share the lighting used by James, the artist using the area next to my space.

Above is an audio recording for Spring Crush: the crumpling of kraft paper as a backdrop to a child’s excited narration of favourite book extracts. Recording Shirley A

Questions, frustrations and a change of tack

I was once a ballet dancer. In fact, dance of all forms – ballet, Highland, tap, disco and soul – was an important part of my identity, so much so, that one would have expected my practice to have been centred on performance until only a few years ago when arthritis, lipoedema, Covid and knees with a tendency to dislocate combined to curtail that part of my life.

My performances are no longer centred on dance, thanks to arthritis: this act was a mime undertaken as part of an intervention with another student’s work. Photo Lloyd Darling Good

Life can be tough, but that is the way it is and there is nothing I can do about any of the above except get on with life. However, what do I do about the latent energy and desire to move wildly that still bubbles within? As an artist, it is all very well and pleasant to sit sketching, painting, origami and so on, but what really fires me up is when I get physical with the material and then start picking away at its materiality and its relationship with the space it is in, its relationship with me and its relationship with the viewer.

In manipulating cardboard I used both physical and mental energies: stretching and walking around it in order to cut through the substrate, join pieces together and affix them to the surfaces available, all the while thinking, thinking, thinking: “What if I do this? Look what happened when I cut this way instead of that way. What is it doing to this space? Why won’t it fit? Why isn’t it doing what I thought it would?” The last two questions can come from frustration and impatience, which of course is not good. When this happens one needs to stop, and think critically. For example, cutting through the cardboard was hard on my hands, making them stiff and painful. I knew I had arthritis, so why didn’t I stop and develop another method sooner rather than later? Why didn’t I use tools to help with the cutting? The problems were also compounded by the mental impact of having struggled with the cardboard and then for all my work to come to nothing thanks to the way the decorators mishandled my work at the start of the year: I was physically and mentally broken, and that whole period sickened me so much that I felt unable to carry on with the project.

Magdalena Abakanowicz’s monumental hanging tapestries at Tate Modern. Photo Shirley A

I wasn’t convinced that I could turn any of this into a positive. But, incredibly, it has happened in a short space of time. Instead of simply giving up, I kept interested in art with activities that have nothing to do with my project (but of course everything has an influence on one’s practice): I went to see shows such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Maria Bartuszová and Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern, Carol Schneeman at the Barbican, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Tate B, Peter Doig at the Courtauld – and I returned to the cinema, where I became mesmerised by the funny and moving Broker and the hauntingly desperate Gotland.

It was with Abakanowicz’s monumental hanging sculptures that I saw strong links with my work. A member of the fibre art movement, she saw the material, “as the basic element constructing the organic world… the tissue of plants, leaves and ourselves”1. This is how I view paper - it comes from trees and by manipulating them into tree-like sculptures, I bring nature into my work. And the cycle perpetuates: when viewers see my work, they recognise - consciously or subconsciously - the forms and so nature is absorbed back into their psyche.

Turning points
Visiting lecturers Julie Hill, Karen David and Florence Peake also worked their magic, so that slowly I was drawn back into the project with different perspectives: Julie with her crumpled paper sculpture Dark River that got me thinking about the materiality of paper and how working with that would be kinder to my body than cardboard; Karen with a fictioning workshop, where I reassessed whether my installation should be based on an overgrown secret garden or one that is more abstract, more zen; and Florence who, through communicating with her entire body, made me realise that, despite my infirmities, my body was still physically relevant to my practice, that it could still have a positive impact on how I work.

Turning frustration into art: Manuel Solano’s Giving the Finger shown at DCA 2022. Photo Shirley A

Giving up? No way
In fact, Manuel Solano – whose practice is similar to mine being based on childhood moments affected by family, friends, TV, film and pop music – completely transformed their way of working when they lost their eyesight in 2014. Since then, Solano has reconfigured their practice and created a body of work in painting, sculpture and film using tactile mapping techniques with pins, string and pipe cleaners to form shapes that they can feel with their hands. Their Giving the Finger reflected the anger they felt at having lost their sight: “I wanted to give the finger to everybody who would look at this painting, just because they could look at it.”2

While I’ve never felt that I need to give the finger to anyone regarding my health, I admire Solano’s tenacity in continuing their practice, particularly painting, which many would have expected them to give up. I’ve got to do what I need to do, otherwise, what am I?

1. Laura Cummings, ‘Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope Review - A Wonder Weaver’, The Guardian, 20 November 2022, <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/nov/20/magdalena-abakanowicz-tate-modern-london-review-every-tangle-of-thread-and-rope> accessed 20 April 2023.

2. Manuel Solano, The Top of Each Ripple, Dundee Contemporary Arts, 27 August-20 November 2022.

Spring Show

The annual Spring Show offers another opportunity to show my work in progress to the public. Switching to paper, I now have a lighter and gentler modus operandi and, as a result, the forms are more sculptural, abstract and delicate. While the installation still has a minimalist aesthetic, adding a touch of colour offers a much more interesting prospect to viewers.

Less is more at the Spring Show. With just three pieces on display, the all-important white space allows the installation as a whole to breathe. Photo Shirley A

It was interesting to compare how viewers reacted to my work compared with the Winter Show. Both are large installations that invite the viewer in; both installations are made from beige-coloured packaging materials. But here the comparisons end. For the Winter Show, the cardboard cutouts had a more imposing, ominous feel. They looked awkward as did viewers who wandered through cautiously. This could be because of their construction. In making large pieces that would stretch from floor to ceiling I had joined two pieces together with tape, but hadn’t considered the grain direction (flutes) of the cardboard and how, taped together horizontally, they would flop over, which happened during installation and resulted in creases. Such towering constructions looked as though they would fall down.

The paper coils of the Spring Show were a gentler proposition. Viewers considered the display before wandering through and would stop for longer periods to consider the individual pieces. In this display, there were no overhanging pieces and because the artworks were mainly on the floor, that’s where their eyes went. At the Winter Show, viewers were looking up down, and to the sides, and used more of their bodies to interact with the work, and this is what I want for my work. An installation cannot be completely immersive if only the eyes are experiencing the work.

Considered positioning of the artworks permits viewers to walk around the installation, stop and consider each piece individually. Photo Shirley A

Leading up to the show, I played around with the display, positioning the coiled forms in various groupings – their beige colour matched that of the floor, providing an almost desert setting, and in one arrangement the smaller coils appeared like a group of sheltering nomads. But less proved to be more, and so just two large coils were shown along with the painted test pieces hanging as a background. This is now a simpler, more mature work. The space between each item has been carefully considered and I can see that more space will further enhance the installation as a whole. Stepping back, the Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth Somerset comes to mind, with its grassy mounds.

Grassy mounds at the Oudolf Field, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset. Photo Jason Ingram and Hauser & Wirth

A 25m paper roll was painted yellow on one side, then twisted and coiled, and fixed with garden twine. Photo Shirley A

I find that my Japanese influences are coming more into play as the project develops, with an almost zen interplay between object and space. Indeed, following a fictioning workshop with Karen David, in which I had developed the secret garden element of the cardboard installation, we discussed my display and she commented that my secret garden had now been transformed into a zen landscape

Minimalism, colour and the path to enlightenment

Considering my forays into crumpled paper and use of paint, and the formalism of my work, I am thinking more about how certain colours have different relationships with depth, noting Clement Greenberg’s rationale that modernist painting uses its own method for criticising itelf1. I looked at painters such as Donald Judd, who painted the inside of metal boxes to show how colour, reflected against the metal, plays with perceptions of depth; and Phyllida Barlow, who used paint as a sculptural material. I also examined more contemporary artists: Angela de la Cruz who, for her collapsed paintings, takes canvas and applies heavy layers of bold-coloured paint, transforming the form of the painting and making it sculptural; and Tauba Auerbach, who produces series of paintings using canvases that have been folded, sprayed, pulled, stretched and then folded out flat.

Using household paint, this is a selection of matt emulsion colours from the Dulux, Crown, Farrow & Ball, Heritage and Elle Decoration ranges. I painted on plain kraft paper and on kraft paper with an undercoat of Leyland’s white emulsion. Photo Shirley A

I had explored the minimalist approach in 2017 with White Boxes_1, which I created using cardboard boxes that I had collected from various sources, painted white, and then, referencing Junichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, positioned them in and around each other to see what forms and shadows were produced: “We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.”2

White Boxes_1. Painting the found boxes white eliminates their history and allows the viewer to see the forms and shadows they produce. Note in the background, to the right, images of Nevelson’s walls. Photo Shirley A

At the time I was also interested in the nested objects that Louise Nevelson created from detritus collected from the streets of New York, then painted either black or white and reassembled into her distinctive walls. By painting the pieces just one colour negated their histories and in turn unified them into a single artwork/collection. Nevelson said that this also ‘disciplined’ her as an artist in line with the formalist approach3. Regarding the major project, by moving away from regarding the structures as ‘the tree’ or ‘the garden’, and instead focusing on the materiality and the making process, my work becomes more abstract and, therefore, speaks for itself. It is a less obvious proposition for the viewer, allowing them to assess the piece and communicate with it on their own terms.

Minimalism is about boiling things down to their essential parts and I need to avoid thinking, ’This looks like that’ and, instead, consider how ‘X works with or against Y, which in turn produces Z’. By adding colour, I am looking at what the paint does to the substrate and how it transforms the material through the process of experimentation. The test pieces of crumpled paper roller-painted with white household emulsion, which on first sight I compared with an aerial view of ‘snow-capped mountains’, becomes topographical, showing depth and density. It acts as an uplifting base to any colour I add on top of that. With my test pieces, by adding just one colour on top of the white I have developed a palette of zingy ‘Miami’ pastels.

Painted test pieces: An undercoat of brilliant white emulsion on crumpled paper, with a coloured layer on top resulted in an uplifting pastel palette. Photo Shirley A

The secret garden area was originally planned as a place of repose and contemplation at a certain point during a journey of self-discovery, but it is really about marking a turning point – the Eureka! moment. This spot will comprise simple, mound-like forms of colour that will make it stand out from the large vertical structures. The use of colour here is crucial in changing the mood. Buddhist monks use specific colours – for example, deep red for divinity and orange for imparting joy – that function in the psyche and emulate their path to enlightenment. Within the secret garden, colours could be placed in order of personal recovery, for example, blue (soothing), green (healing), red (deep contemplation), orange (energy) and yellow (hope). The uplifting lemon yellow will set the visitor off in a new trajectory.

1. Clement Greenberg, ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’, Forum Lectures (Voice of America), Washington DC, US, 1960.

2. Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows (London: Vintage, 2002), p. 46.

3. Brooke Kamin Rapaport, The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend (New York: The Jewish Museum, 2007), p. 8.

Crumpled body, crumpled paper; Matisse, Hill

For a while I’ve been finding it difficult working with cardboard and wallpaper, despite their light weight and fragility. Given the work I put into leading up to and installing the Winter Show and the decorator debacle soon after, I was drained: mentally, after the damage caused by the decorators I couldn’t face trying to rework them; physically, a flare-up of arthritis meant that my stiffened hands couldn’t rip even wallpaper. Julie F Hill’s description of her crumpled paper sculpture Dark River I (2019) 1 has inspired a slight detour in my project.

Julie F Hill’s Dark River I

Using several rolls of kraft paper, I folded, rolled and twisted them to their full lengths, then moulded them to create coils on the floor and pull up with twine to hang from the ceiling. To add another dimension, I roller-painted several test sheets – flat, crumpled, squashed and held with twine. I made full use of the seminar room to crumple a 25m roll, then paint and lay it on chairs to dry out. The painted effect was akin to the view of snow-topped mountains from above. Drying, it was display in itself, with its length, drapery and folds taking up the length of the room.

Crumpled kraft paper in a coil. Photo Shirley A

Coiled paper hung from the ceiling. Photo Shirley A

Using paper appeals for several reasons, as it did for Matisse in his later years, when illness largely confined him to bed2: the material’s light weight and malleability allows the artist to play and experiment quickly with creating forms on a large scale without pain, and with freedom from art-world parameters. The same qualities also mean that such large sculptures can be easily transported: “Just crumple them up and put them in a bag”.3

Roller-painted crumpled paper resulted in a snow-covered-mountain effect. Photo Shirley A

Crucially, though, in exploring this medium I am energised by this new method and have found a new vocabulary. By putting aside my initial narrative – of the child hiding to reconfigure their world – and concentrating solely on form, light and simple colour, I reveal a story of economy. And, ironically, by doing so I come back to the original context having produced works that have the freshness and energy of a young child, as Matisse did when, nearing death, he created The Snail (1953): “It is so close to a work made by a child of six. It has the freshness, it has the freedom, yet it was very carefully composed,” Serota4

The Snail, Henri Matisse, 1953. Simple in method and use of colour, it has the freshness of a young child’s hand and the considered composition of an adult. Image henrimatisse.org

Pleasing incidentals
By inserting a smaller roll into the knot of the hanging piece created a human-like figure evoking the shape and energy of a Sufi whirling dervish. Then pulling it back with twine to make room for the larger painting test inadvertently produced a tree-like structure that I find more pleasing than my cardboard versions.

Whirling dervish. Photo Shirley A

Held back with twine, the hanging sculpture creates an overhanging tree…
Photo Shirley A

… just like the pear tree in my own garden, which had branches pulled down and back, so the tree would produce more fruit. Photo Shirley A

Whether I use this in my final project or not, I have now created work for the upcoming Spring Show.

1 Julie F Hill, guest lecture, London Metropolitan University, 6 March 2023.
2 Benjamin Wolff, A Second Life: Renewing Ourselves in a Time of Constraints and Isolation, forbes.com, 19 July 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/benjaminwolff/2020/07/19/a-second-life-renewing-ourselves-in-a-time-of-constraints-and-isolation/> [accessed 19 March 2023].
3 Hill, ibid.
4 Nicholas Serota in Henri Matisse: A Cut Above the Rest (2013-2014), online video recording, YouTube, 12 February 2016, <https://www.thehistoryofart.org/henri-matisse/cut-outs> [accessed 19 March 2023].

Materiality and hidden depths part 2

Jospin’s Forêt Palatine has an instant wow factor: at 380cm x 680cm it almost filled the wall in the Hayward Gallery1. That it is a forest is obvious, but its immense structure becomes increasingly uncanny the more one examines it. The layers produce a perspective that goes beyond the structure’s physical depth, which is barely one metre. This is largely down to how Jospin manipulated the substrate’s materiality – layering multiples of cardboard sheets, then gluing them together so they become large blocks that are then worked into with knives, tools such as electric drills and, simply, hands to cut and rip open the layers. This physical construct for narrative invites, as she puts it, “… layers of interpretation” that also tells the story of cardboard’s materiality.

"I like the idea [of taking] this industrial material and putting it back to its origin, which is the forest. The forest is a very powerful subject when you start working on it, because it’s something that talks to everybody. You have so many myths about journey or finding the truth… it’s an image of the mind, an image of being lost, or finding your way.” Jospin2

‘The journey’ is a strong element within the context of my work, which compares the mental state of the Covid-housebound adult with that of the young child who is constrained by the home, parents and anxieties when trying to fit into the wider world. The child, through using found materials such as cardboard boxes to construct a den (their safe place), embarks on a journey of coping with and understanding the real world; similarly, the adult, seeking hope beyond the confines of the home during lockdown, uses packaging from online purchases to create miniature pop-up scenarios and is, in the process, transported to another world of their own making, in the process coming to terms with reality.

1 Shown at ‘Among the Trees’, 1 August to 31 October 2020, Hayward Gallery, London
2 Jospin, Eva, ‘Among the Trees: Eva Jospin’, Hayward Gallery, https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/blog/videos/among-trees-eva-jospin - accessed 25 February 2022

Eva Jospin’s monumental Foret Palatine, shown at the Hayward Gallery, 2020. Photo Shirley A

The side view of Foret Palatine reveals it to be less than 1m deep, a surprise given the perspective the work appears to have when viewed face on. Photo Shirley A