COMMISSION PROJECT DEVELOPMENT I began my project when taking photos in my back garden, where I found some out of place

objects, making me question how they got there or why they are there:

An old tin, similar to an ammo tin

A rotten piece of furniture

A rusting tin can

A smashed red brick

I was inspired to look into the rate of decay and decay within various environments. The above images show the fallen object that has smashed on a concrete step, the litter thrown into the grass rusted from the rain, the ambiguous box dumped far from its place of purpose, and the fly-tipped article that has merged with its environment, spawning grass. My images reminded me of Steven Maisels collection of photographs of the copper canisters filled with unclaimed ashes from Oregon State Insane Asylum patients. The way that water has weathered the cans and the individual design left by this reinforce the idea of the cans as portrait, and made me think about objects having a story behind them.

Copper cans from the asylum When exchanging projects with Christine, the research she produced drew me also to interior decay also explored by Maisel in the asylum and by Pollidori in New Orleans and Chernobyl.

Maisel

Pollidori

The vibrant colours, natural light and wallpaper crumbling as if acidburnt, create an eerie, almost spiritual atmosphere in the images, forming other-worldly spaces lost from their original contexts. The way in which the interior decoration is decaying in contrast to the emphatically strong structure that remains, brings a narrative to the images, as if time and destruction passed through the rooms as a living being. After much consideration, I found myself interested more in the effects of time, which led me to find an art movement called Actual Art. Its followers often incorporated the element of time directly in their work. One artist whose method interested me was Dan Dempster, who took his drawings under the sea to allow the salt to etch them into steel. I was particularly drawn to the work of Robert DuGrenier, who creates hand blown glass forms that trees grow through to create permanent sculpture, or crabs pick up and use as their homes, and a rather clever glass beehive that is structured so that wax sculptures are formed by the resident bees. Tony Reason works with rust in encaustic on linen to create peculiar surfaces and textures. Finally Russian artist Alexia Nikovs art pieces truly change with time, as they are paintings made from metallic paints whose patinas react with their environments and age with time. Similarly to Nikov, Terry Fugate-Wilcox uses water soluble pigments and dyes, layering them and allowing weather to change them over time.

Dempster

DuGrenier

Reason

Nikov

Fugate-Wilcox