BA (Hons) Fine Art: Sculpture
I am interested in the etiquette and conventions of the exhibition space, the conceit of being inside an artwork, and the spectatorâs role in viewing and activating it. I am fascinated by implicit rules of conduct and âsocial normsâ. What are the norms that govern the duration of a spectatorâs encounter with the work, how can they be described or challengedâ? Waiting, finality, and the commitment of time that artworks require, are central concerns in my practice. The dimension of time in a work is a primary preoccupation. âThe work of art can be perceived only after it is completed.â Sol Lewitt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art. Do I need to make the work? When is the idea âcompletedâ? I start most of my work through writing proposals for artworks. Do I need to take the idea further than a proposal? Can the idea/artwork be realised/completed by a proposal? Here text and language are crucial; does the idea need to become a physical object or action? It is an exciting challenge to communicate with the greatest economy of means. I believe in the Romantic Conceptualist ideal of the power of the idea without adornment, the striving to extract the ideaâs essential poetry. The process of choreographing artworks and the systems involved are a vital and engaging part of the work. I enjoy the aesthetics of administration, the artist becoming the human resources manager, the variety of roles my artwork allows me to adopt. demelzawatts.com