Category: EXPERIMENTATION

These are some of the material explorations I’ve been working on this semester. They are not finished pieces, but are in the process of becoming after having been pulled apart.

I’m experimenting with melting away the “skin” texture of some other PVC leather that I have in my studio.

I molded the surface of my Ikea table before scraping it away and cast it in resin. When it sits on top of the table, you can see the scraping through the “wood” veneer.

I’m interested in the element of time spent together. The table which has been fully scraped reflects a relationship between myself and the object. Sometimes I would approach it with excitement, sometimes with fatigue. Sometimes I would be working quickly, sometimes slow. And how would the table change. Perhaps some days there was more moisture in the air, some days less. As more of its underbelly was revealed, perhaps its chemical constitution began to change, however minutely. And the markings on the table are what remains of this exchange, a union of sorts.

I was initially attracted to the faux leather because of the juxtaposition of skin and PVC. I’m interested in the idea of micro plastics leaching into bodies. To make body surfaces out of plastic seemed to be in some ways an extreme way of exemplifying that. I had the initial idea to cover something in the fabric, perhaps a body part. I was thinking a lot of Janine Antoni’s Saddle. I decided instead to carve into it. I began carving, but it wasn’t turning out as I’d hoped. It was then that I realized that I needed to “skin” it. In peeling off the PVC and trying to return the fabric to what it really is (cotton) I couldn’t help but destroy it, physicalizing the interconnectedness of synthetics within our structures and bodies. This to me feels like the first moment of contact between myself and the material. As I work with it, further questions and concerns will undoubtedly emerge.