07/01/2017 - SCULPTURE PREP

After researching both traditonal and modern examples of relief sculpture, I decided working on a street intervention would not only celebrate and emphasise the qualities of relief, but also to be relevent with my personal practice. I also wanted to focus on considering context and placement as this was something my tutor Faye has suggested this was something I could improve on during our feedback session.

The last year had been one of many celebrity deaths, but the passing which stuck with me most, was just before the end of the one before, when on the 22nd of November 2015, Noala, one of the worlds last remaining Northern White Rhinos died. This leave only three surviving animals remaining, the only male of which having had his horn cut off as a desperate measure to protect him from poachers. I find this story very upsetting, as it is the loss of what was once a major subspecies of one of the planet's most iconic creatures, and I think serves as an important marker of our effects on the planet. If such prominent species can be lost, it begs the question of how great our impact is on all of the smaller, less widely known organisms.

I chose to highlight this cause in my early idea sketches in preperation for my SCULPTURE sessions. My initial idea was to use the relief style to depict the bones of a dead rhino, in a kind of fossilised archealogical dig style, parodying the extinction of the dinosaurs and their remains. In doing this I want to suggest connotations of how one day iconic modern day species such as the rhino could be reserved to be seen only in achealogical studies and natural history museums. I thought this would also lend itself well to the nature of a relief sculpture.

I chose to do both full body and induvidual skull sketches as simple composition ideas. I favoured the first one (above) with the plinth below and hunting rifle above as it seemed like a hunters trophy-come-museum display cabinet. I think the second design with just the skull was, although eyecatching and visually interesting, more obscure than the first. To translate my concept as clearly as possible to passers by in a busy city setting my design has to be clear and unambiguous.

Although I liked both of these initial plans, I was keen to not restrict myself with specific ideas, as I could not be sure exactly what the workshop would entail, meaning my designs could potentially be unsuitable. I had found it useful however to play with the idea of wall plaques and anatomical fossils and feel I have secured a mental basis of possibilities which I can build on in the workshop.