Christine Borland: Simbodies, Nobodies and Me.
Lecture by Christine Borland about her practice at Glasgow School of Art in Collaboration with Glasgow Sculpture Studios. An intriguing artist who displays a curiosity of morality that seems to reconstruct things that have died.
‘Christine Borland’s work is an example of a more serious engagement with such subject matter, feeding upon it’s grisly and voyeuristic side but to fairly serious purpose.’
"I cannot help but endorse his analysis of the high art lite tendency… its abject willingness to be f**ked up by the 1990s cult of celebrity; f**ked over by the 1990s boom in consumerism; fucked sideways by it’s adoption of the styles and modes of popular culture; and fucked to buggery by its co-option by the new Labourite idiotology."
Will Self on Julian Stallabrass’s book HIGHARTLITE
Art and ideas.
I’m struggling at the present time to formulate my ideas into a cohesive thread from which my work is produced. Trying to find clarity in the midst of a lack of research and conceptual thought is proving to be very difficult. A clear and decisive directional route is needed with the support of preliminary research and a clear understanding of the decisions during the making process. I’m intrigued by social and political ideological debates and ideas and the social commentary. An investigative
This audio clip is an extract from a group critique that took place at the end of November 2011. Here we discuss my work concerning the plugs which I have already posted on this Blog.
This is a piece I am currently working on and is working well both conceptually and aesthetically. This is due to the language which has formed in respect of the placement of the mirror and the relationship they have with the rods and steel plates. The rods sway and bounce and induce a kentic element to a formalist aesthetic. The mirrors allude and infer to another place as a window but reflect the conversation between the two rods. A reference perhaps to human forms and relations. Energies and stimuli of the transcendental framed spaces reflect back and forth between the mirrors and the rods. The monotonal aesthetic of the pieces and the placement of the rods in the floor all induce a coma in which the mirrors encapsulate the rods and steel plate stands and propel the pieces towards each other.
The plugs shoot out of the floor. They exude energy and jut out of the concreate sea like an electrical current. A shocking and life affirming engagement with a weighted. The plugs wilt and reaffirm there fragility as they gravite towards the floor. They have a life and existence of there own and there is an conversation between them and a reenfored association with the ghostly echo.
I’ve been waiting for some clips in order to fix the panes of glass together. Experimenting with the pre drilled holes I have inserted the wire through the holes. I quite like the glass pieces sat on the floor and the investigate approch to energies is still clear and intriguing. An ending of the wire has been commented upon by a few viewers as not been ambiguous enough and not alluding to the continuing flow of energies. The fragility for me has been somewhat lost in as much as the glass becomes much more fixed by being placed on the floor and does not connect with our associations of the precarious and dangerous elements of glass on the floor because the wire lifts and elevates the panes of the floor. There is a movement to the this work and but it’s conceptual backbone does not really exist and is more an explorative approach to the aesthetics of the materials.
Cast some plaster plugs as a trial for a piece of work I’m currently making. They came out quite well and were done with clay moulds. I’m going to make some better ones which I intend to place in glass panes which will be ascending from the floor and will be supported by two chains suspended from the ceiling. A continuing exploration of transitional space and frames. The glass pieces will be framed in steel and they will be connected together with the plaster plugs sitting in pre-drilled holes in the glass.
Some work made over the summer at a disused water mill in Gloucestershire. The space was inspiring to work in and I would have liked to have had longer than two weeks in order to explore the space and make some work in response to it. This work was made in situe and examines the weighting of objects and cutting through of space. Something I am starting to explore through my work. Transitional spaces and there reactionary content.
