14.5.21 - Robert Smithson

 

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Primary Research - Tetra Paks

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  Recently we have been making more of an effort at home to recycle things properly. Tetra paks are difficult to recycle because they are made of different materials; plastic, card and foil. We have been putting our empty cartons aside to take them to the correct place for recycling, so I took some photos of the collection. I think they have an interesting presence when arranged in multiples, strangely they remind me of a huddle of penguins or a crowd at a festival. I think the tower like shape also mirrors modern urban architecture.  Personally I find skyscrapers kind of dystopian and they give me feelings of impending doom as if something could go wrong at any second. They seem oppressive and sinister, a huge pillar of glass and metal. I think the cartons have a much friendlier appearance despite the similarities in shape, and the associations with food create a sense of comfort and domesticity.
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Another Batch of Cartons

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  After several of my porcelain cartons came out broken, I decided to try earthenware instead, which should be stronger. Unfortunately it means there is a smaller range of glazes to choose from. The two more damaged looking cartons in this image are porcelain while the other three are earthenware, so you can see the difference it made to switch to the thicker clay as they came out of the mold much cleaner and didn't break from handling. Here are the results of the three earthenware pieces - I think they look really good. I went with turquoise, matt black and antique green. I decided to use these colours after my previous lot where I thought the dove glaze was most effective, the cold tone reminded me of stone and the natural world. The turquoise one (left) has a beautiful gradient that reminds me of a clear shallow sea, an idealistic vision of what the world could look like without pollution and litter. It has a fluidity as the intense blue bleeds into the lighter tones.  The ...
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29.1.21 - Objects in the Bath and Shower

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One of the first things that came to mind when I got the re-arrangement brief was to do something with my collection of beanies. Because they are so colourful, I decided they should go against a plain background, so I cleaned the bath out and started filling it with the animals.  The first set of photos shows the animals in a random arrangement where I photographed them from different angles... For these close up images I placed the camera in the bath with the animals and blindly took the photographs, not knowing what the results would be. The flash came on for these pictures which makes the in-focus areas appear very sharp with a clear representation of the animals' surface textures. They also remind me of claw machines in arcades, which gives the images a nostalgic feel - all of these beanies were manufactured in the 1990's and early 2000's. This is the thing that opens and closes the plughole in the bath, and it created some strange reflections of the beanies which look ...
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