Artist Research - My Inspirations

Nick Rands

Earthly Spheres, 1999
This work by Nick Rands features 4000 hand-shaped spheres of mud that he has collected while travelling the path of a river. I think it's amazing how many different shades there are and mud isn't something we would usually pay much attention to - let alone see beauty in - so I think Rands has done a really effective job of transforming and elevating this material into something really spectacular. They also remind me of the variety in skin colours among humans and how no two are exactly the same, but we all share the same world. It's interesting to see that there are some cooler shades among the spheres like the purplish ones, they look quite unusual and it makes me wonder what's in them that makes them so different to the rest.

I found this work really relevant to my project and inspiring too - I felt really excited to work with natural materials that I'd gathered myself because I'd seen how well it worked for Nick Rands. Digging clay felt like a primal activity that reminded me of our roots as humans - discovering materials and evolving to use these natural resources around us as we became more and more advanced. It was a really exciting experience, not only discovering local clay but then seeing the change it goes through as it is fired and glazed. The colours in Rands' spheres of earth are very similar to the colours that appeared throughout my ceramics process too, beginning with the grey clay and then the warm oranges and browns of the fired pots with the mossy green glaze.

Nicola Hicks

His Price is Everything, 2011

Bill, 1991
Nicola Hicks uses plaster, clay and straw to make sculptures of animals, mythical creatures and people, which are then cast in bronze. An early idea that I had was to make miniature clay bears and dogs to place throughout the exhibition spaces, and Hicks' work made me think about how the style affects the message. Her bear sculpture is incredibly textured with pieces of straw sticking out and a really rough application of the clay or plaster that makes the bear look as if it has risen straight from the ground. It has a powerful, heavy appearance and the way it is presented as a bust is quite jarring because we associate those with meticulously carved marble and wealthy settings. In a similar way, my pottery will be a subversion of the decorative fine china pieces seen in Newstead and offer something much more stripped back and organic. 
The terracotta dog sculpture reminded me of the colour of my fired pots and I like it's characterful pose. The features are simplified and choppy but it still has a close likeness to a real dog and this is what I was trying to communicate when I was making my small clay figures, but I think the size was limiting. The sculpture captures a very real moment, rather than staging it to look all majestic like Byron's commissioned paintings of his dogs, so there is another contrast in the status of Hicks' work vs the objects and artwork found in Newstead - the materials and their application as well as the actual subject matter all come together to create a certain aesthetic, from the everyday to the extravagant.

Aneta Regel



“I am trying to challenge our conventions of beauty,” ... “In fact, some pieces are on the edge of being almost repulsive—like, unwell…and yet, they attract.” - https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp5k8k/aneta-regel-ceramic-wooden-sculptures

This is another example of an artist who creates organic forms with ceramics and raw materials. I think it's interesting how the artist describes them as 'almost repulsive' and 'yet, they attract' because there really is something about ugliness that draws us in and it's quite a natural thing, like the 'car crash phenomenon' where we find it hard not to look. I really like the textures and colours on the branches that highlight the beauty and complexity of moss and lichen, like Nick Rands' earth spheres, these are aspects of the environment that we don't always pay any mind. I have always felt infatuated with the natural world, but particularly after the 'fabricated nature' project I have been really looking out for things like mushrooms and strange growths in the wild. When I was collecting branches I came across lots of colourful lichen, similar to those depicted in Regel's work and this is a photograph I took showing a really vibrant green one.

 Another thing I like about Regel's work is that despite the natural subject and crude materials, it has an otherworldliness, maybe due to the way she has only made fragments of branches and arranged them side by side like towers or strange alien monuments. I hope that my work for this project also has an ugly attractiveness, that will, to reiterate Regel's quote, 'challenge our conventions of beauty'. 


Andy Goldsworthy

Clay Tree Wall, 2009
This is Andy Goldsworthy's Clay tree wall, featuring an actual tree on a wall covered in clay which has cracked as it dried. This article talks about how it shows the process of change:
Goldsworthy is known for his in-situ art about nature and the outdoors. It was strange to see a piece his in an indoor setting but it's very striking, especially with the horizontal orientation of the tree and the muddy clay contrasting with the clean white walls. The whole piece reminds me of decomposition, the way a fallen tree or dead animal is reclaimed by the earth and recycled by the ecosystem - 'Fantastic Fungi' on Netflix talks about this and how trees and mushrooms are able to communicate through an underground network called mycelium and the branches are like a large scale representation of this. A fallen tree like the one in Goldsworthy's 'Clay Tree Wall' would be covered in new life had it remained on the forest floor, but this piece is a very different take on the death of the tree, depicting it like skeletal, archeological remains. I like that there are many different ways to see it, to me it looks like it could be a fossil, or roots at the bottom of a dried up lake. The main reason I decided to look at Goldsworthy's work was because I wanted to use natural materials like he is famous for and to be more environmentally conscious in my art.


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