Flesh & Fat
My idea for this piece comes from my interest with composition and deathcare, looking at religious practices and the state of the body after death. The lamentation of the body within the Catholic Church in Ireland, breaking down the core elements of which fascinate me.; the traditions of wakes, the veneration of saintly relics and the effect of catholic doctrine. Highlighting and obscuring the reality of death through ritual, mirroring the burial and resurrection of christ. The use of the body as scapegoat for fear and misunderstanding, our separation with death cultural practices. We view our bodies only through life, but after death our body provides the ultimate form of life in its ability to return itself to nature and the regeneration death has on the cycle of organisms and other non human life. This death positive outlook has been an influence within the work, a coming to terms with place without ego and the transcendental nature of death.
Death and decomposition
A theme I wanted to focus on during my viewpoints assignment is the temporal nature of the body, decomposition and the value placed the body in both life and death. Some of my first experiments are based on reusing materials that do not decompose, the use of polythene sheeting constructed around a bamboo structure to allow for movement and bending by natural forces. Deciding to construct and photograph on a day where the weather would allow for the piece to interact with the piece.
Experiment 1
More From Experiment 1
The sheeting connotes a move towards death positivity, a topic that has been a personal interest of mine. The way we speak about death and often the morbid associations with it, but in decomposition there can be beauty. Using the sheeting to represent the represent continuation in the human experience spiritually. How the sheeting interacts with the wind was important when shooting the photographs to capture the airy, flexibility to the material as a representation of the harmony of symbiotic relation we as humans have to nature. The supplementation organisms have when the human form returns to the earth , in honouring and taking part in the cycle of death and regeneration.
Experiment 2
Stills from a video piece interacting with the polythene sheets, the juxtaposition of processed material with natural material in the form of my body while both in movement and the relationship we have with our understanding of our own mortality; captured on video to document how in time My body will not be like it is in that moment in time, from that still in time I will only get older while the material used will not be compromised in its structure. The positivity I have for this knowledge and understanding of the natural process is shown in my embracement of the material and the surroundings silhouetted against cloud formations. The use of material to represent human form is something that I use within my work, using it to mimic human qualities and the viewers relationship with a representational item.
Polythene sheet painting
In one of my experiments with painting on the polythene sheets, I allowed instinct and the natural movement of the sheets in the wind to guide how the paint applied to its canvas. The sporadic nature of the paint strokes snd markings acted as a reminder of the same process in which our surroundings are shaped, the human need to create and settle as we become more metropolitan in our living, the thing with this way of living separates us from the ceremonial way of dealing with our dead, an inclination to disgust as we become more sensitive to the way we view death. Using a mixture of spray paints and rollers for ease of painting when in motion, using a palette of flesh tones and vivid pink hue that was more opaque to allow light to be blocked out partially in places with the thicker colour placement.