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Critique Exhibition Reference Studio Writing

MFA

I’m officially now a Master at Fine Art đŸ™‚ Please see my website for further updates to my practice and this link for my thesis support paper. Much love x

Categories
Critique Exhibition

Dry

Dry

Clothes dryer, furniture legs, Greenback Blowfly, copper, boiled broccoli water, wash cloths, buttons, pins, Exotic Wet Look gloves, steel rail, wall fixtures, sheets, towels, fabric, mesh, Vagisil pH Balance branding, vegetable dye, dirt, artist’s hair, horse hair, found elevator hair ball, found wall hairs, dry pastels, faux ice cube, Vaseline, height of the artist’s genitals, deconstructed underwear, St Johns Wort, silicone, water, electrical plugs, electrical cord, latex tube, acrylic tube, nitrile glove, peg.

Please imagine this as a performance (add the scent of boiled broccoli, dry heat, vibration, the intermittent sounds of buttons and pins suddenly connecting with metal and billowing fabric on the rack).

Video documentation by Gemma Crowe.

Leaky puddle image by Alla Gadassik.

Room D4384 @ ECUAD.

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Critique Exhibition Studio

Progressions

Final critique preparations are under way.

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Exhibition

‘Being a Body in the Body’

Being a Body in the Body by Heidi Holmes is a work conceived for the purposes of the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2022 MFA, State of Practice Exhibition (SOP).

At first it seems like there is not much here. A clothes dryer, several drawings hung low on the wall, a pot of water and a fogged-up window. It is only on closer inspection and perhaps with the assistance of the material list that the details of Being a Body in the Body reveal themselves. 

Heidi Holmes, Being a Body in the Body, 2021, Peeled paint and plaster, the height of the artist’s genitals, broccoli drawings (pencil, acrylic, gouache), the height of the artist, Vaseline, male electrical plugs (fucking the institution), found holes, horse hair, liquid latex, adhesive, deconstructed underwear, St John’s wort, the amount of fluid in the artist’s body, water, pot, pump, latex hose, clothes dryer (muted), faux broccoli, faux lemon, vinegar bottle, goat milk soap, Vagisil pH Balance Daily Intimate Wash branding, cotton towels.

A description of Being a Body in the Body

The clothes dryer is unplugged, but the cord is not free, it loops back onto itself back into the rear vent of the machine. The dryer is unbalanced by a head of faux broccoli covered with white goat milk soap which has been wedged under one corner of the base of the machine. The front door of the clothes dryer is slightly ajar and in its dark interior, a faux lemon can be seen. On top of the dryer is a crumpled stack of bath towels, printed with the branding of Vagisil PH Balancing Wash – it seems like corporate branding and although the towels are crumpled, they appear to be new, unused. Within the installation, the dryer sits on a polished concrete floor at the apex of two walls – one is a wall of windows and the other a plaster wall extending up to a very high ceiling.

The windowed wall, has five large windows that have been finger-smeared with Vaseline up to the height of the artist. The smear creates a textured effect that un-focuses the external view onto trees, walkways and other buildings. At the end of the wall, a pair of underwear that have been deconstructed at the seams and dyed with St Johns Wort have been stuffed into a pre-existing hole, the remaining fabric of the underwear dangling down over the windows, moving slightly with any breeze. Half way along the windowed wall, a grey support beam breaks up the windows extending up to the ceiling of the space and resting behind this beam is an emptied and squashed plastic vinegar bottle, coated with white goat milk soap. Beside this beam on the concrete floor, is a small drawing depicting a piece of rotting broccoli made with gouache, acrylic paint and pencil. The drawing has been partially slipped under the baseboard that connects the windowed wall to the concrete floor. Close by is a large aluminium stock pot, with a burnt base – the kind you might find in an industrial kitchen. In the pot is 39 liters of room temperature water – this is the same amount of fluid in the artist’s body. A small white water pump on the base of the pot is connected with a with a beige and white latex hose, lightly pumping and rippling the water around in the pot. Over the duration of the artwork being installed, the water has slightly greened and a layer of dust and dead flies now sit on its surface. 

On the adjacent plaster wall and at the height of the artist’s genitals, is an area marked by three small squares of removed paint and plaster, revealing the interior plaster joins and the surface of the internal building materials of the institution. These three removed portions of paint and plaster have been compiled and hung with a long white nail, 20 feet above on the same wall. Two more rotten broccoli drawings are attached to this wall and although their dimensions suggest that they might be neatly framed by the cut sections of the wall, the drawings instead appear adjacent to them or shrunk within them. To view the detailed drawings, bending is necessary and when you bend, you may encounter a horse hair or two. The single white horse hairs protrude from the wall in the many found-holes, perhaps 100. Also located with the horse hairs and found holes are small patches of beige latex, peeled back and shriveled like excess skin around the holes. Completing the work are three small electrical socket adaptions, where an electrical cord with two male plugs discreetly connects the dual outlets, cycling the active current from receiver to receiver.

How Being a Body in the Body was made

Being a Body in the Body began with an ongoing Materials of Menopause catalogue which takes the symptoms and the tools with which to cope with Menopause (and Peri-menopause) and reimagines them as material. This catalogue has evolved into a collection of medicinal and cosmeceutical substances, architectural and domestic re-imaginings and sensory and bodily gestures; scent, heat, wetness/dryness and discharges. Working with materials that might be considered unconventional has proven challenging within this institution and so the negotiations for how Being a Body in the Body could develop into an approved outcome, began months in advance of SOP. As a result, this work was to be a product of a catalogue of suitable materials and a negotiated concession of materials. This is how it came to be that Being a Body in the Body is a work about making the work.

Once these determining factors were solidified, the act of making a site specific work could begin. Three weeks before the work was due for its public audience, all of the possible materials were moved from the studio to the exhibition space. A public barrier of caution tape was installed, a huge TO DO list was taped to the wall. The materials were moved around, stacked, tested and scrutinized against the intended conceptual premise of the work. Materials that I was certain about, became superseded by new discoveries on-site and eventually materials began to migrate back to the studio. On determining the essential materials, considering the architecture and meeting the institutional measures, the materials seemed to naturally locate their resting place in the work, eventually the work felt balanced and the concept clear.

Categories
Critique Exhibition Studio

Untitled blog post (critique)

Heidi Holmes

Dimensional lumber, bathroom dimensions, goat milk soap, electrical cord, male electrical plugs, acetate, zinc oxide, cod liver oil, horse hair, artist’s hair, found hair, graphite, adhesive, faux ice cube, Nitrile gloves, the amount of blood from the artist’s last menstrual cycle, water, mirror, spackling, eggshell coloured paint, room temperature objective of 26°C (to account for hot flush temperature rise)

2021

Dimensional lumber, bathroom dimensions, goat milk soap, electrical cord, male electrical plugs, acetate, zinc oxide, cod liver oil, horse hair, artist’s hair, found hair, graphite, adhesive, faux ice cube, Nitrile gloves, the amount of blood from the artist’s last menstrual cycle, water, mirror, spackling, eggshell coloured paint, room temperature objective of 26°C.

Working Toward (Process)

Heidi Holmes

This is where the title will go

Potential Titles

  • Draft (Untitled)
  • Draft (Cycles and Systems [feminine])
  • Draft (Structures [woman])
  • An electrical pause courtesy of facilities and Yang’s expertise and labour
  • Title: Structural pine, goat milk soap, electrical cord, male sockets, acetate, zinc oxide, cod liver oil, horse hair, artist hair, found hair, graphite, adhesive, faux ice cube, Nitrile gloves, the amount of blood from my last menstrual cycle, water, mirror, spackling, eggshell coloured paint, room temperature ambition of 26°C, an electrical pause courtesy of facilities and Yang’s expertise and labour

2021

Materials: Structural pine, goat milk soap, electrical cord, male sockets, acetate, zinc oxide, cod liver oil, horse hair, artist hair, found hair, graphite, adhesive, faux ice cube, Nitrile gloves, the amount of blood from my last menstrual cycle, water, mirror, spackling, eggshell coloured paint, room temperature ambition of 26°C, an electrical pause courtesy of facilities and Yang’s expertise and labour.