...' an inner conflict was materialising within me - the desire to categorise /implement order was contrasted by a longing for emancipation. Strange oddities hung from the wall, I drew closer to one noticing it had once been a dishcloth. Her rather proper drawl reached me from behind, “that dishcloth had been naughty!”...'

 

‘The Phone to Nowhere’ (2016) is an installation based on a personal written narrative - a narrative that explores a memory riddled with curiosity and uncertainty. The objects/ forms created are enigmatic, sourced from the realms of our everyday lives. They are carriers of ideas, familiar yet unfamiliar, their obscure nature demanding the viewer to reconsider what is 'known'.

 

One of the main components is the floor consisting of 340 handmade individually cast plaster tiles that crack and break down as viewers walk around the installation, allowing an atmosphere of unease and amusement to arise.  Here, the viewers upon entering the space become directly involved in making the process of the artwork, corresponding to the shift seen in contemporary art towards a more Relational Aesthetics.

 

Throughout the installation, the ‘domestic’ is subtly referenced, for instance; the suspended sheets of glass are arranged like a staircase, the set of the bar stools or the copper railing where ‘tea cloth-like pieces of latex hang. However, these aspects remained nothing more than indications, requiring the viewer to draw upon their own experiences in order to shape a reading of it.

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The installation was created for my Fine Art Masters (MLITT) Graduate Show at the Glasgow School of Art, installed in the Tontine Building, Trongate, Glasgow in September 2017.