The Heir (also read: The Hair) is a body of work that proposes objects born in the state of the “in-between”; these are works whose properties inherit characteristics from the two-dimensional media of painting and drawing and the three-dimensional media of sculpture. These are objects that jut into space but also rely on the wall for support. They are tactile and tangible and cast a shadow divorced from their system of display (ie. the square of the canvas and/or frame). These are objects that play with their own depiction, the “in-between”, deflating and protruding as their true shadows dissolve into their new ones.
My initial training and work has explored modes of painting through ideas of depiction and display. I continue to work through these ideas in my current sculptural and installation based work. I rely on domestic fixtures as a departure point for these ideas (couches, tables and shelves) and my current work has been dealing with the collapse and expansion of the two-dimensional within the three-dimensional realm. The Heir uses the idea of the shelf as an underlying structure. The shelf is a basic and ultimate boring structure made for objects to sit upon. The shelf becomes secondary in its role – the display is about the objects on it and the structure remains relatively secondary. I cover these structures, to make them both display and the displayed. The materials that cover them are vinyl, bath mats and area rugs – textured materials that allude to different media and modes of mark making – scribbled charcoal, controlled and weighty graphite, flat gouache, dripped paint, smudged pastel.
I explore this realm of “the in-between” then with a careful consideration of space, shadow, pattern and colour – the formal elements of a display. I mimic each object’s real shadow with a synthetic one of coloured vinyl – some are subtle, some are loud with pattern. In two-dimensional works, shadows are traditionally used to carve objects and figures out of their flat surface to give the impression of illusionistic space. The synthetic shadows are just as important as the structures, they work backwards and are used as a way of ‘flattening’ each object back to a depiction–they activate the objects as objects but also flatten them, to recall them back to the surface that they sit.
I choose my materials based on their availability and my ability to manipulate them through manual labour – cutting, sewing, stapling, airbrushing, taping, etc. This has a relationship to the painted or the drawn, where the hand is evident and allows for slips and imperfections, but allows for a certain amount of personal control. With that said, I want to bring these objects out of the constraints of an “image” – where the edges are no longer defined by the wrapped canvas or boundaries of paper. I’m setting up a situation of the handmade, of the painted, of the drawn, to an extent that allows a walk through and a shifting of perspective.
Paola Savasta 