Open Work 1
Name: Pirate Looks at Eighteen
Materials: Watercolour paint, Watercolour paper, ocean water
38cm x 56.5cm
Video of myself and my Uncle sailing back home with the painting tapped to the deck
The painting was then taped to the deck of my own boat and sailed around Manley Bay for just over an hour...
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Predictions prior to sailing:
- Paper would turn to pulp from the water splash and sails scrapping along it's surface
- The pigment would entirely wash away, leaving only a vague suggestion of the origional painting
- The edges of the paper closest to the tape would weaken and the entire painting would simply slide off the boat into the ocean
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Actual outcome post sailing:
- minimal damage to paper quality, minor warping that mostly resolved with time
- substantial pigment degrading over specific areas (I assume where the sail would travel across the surface of the painting)
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Overall the painting survived unexpectedly well, with the exception of very concentrated and small areas of pigment loss and minor warping of the edges.
Warpped painting imediately after sailing
Painting (Before sailing)
Open Work 2
Name: Vessel of Words
Materials: Glass bottles, candle wax, scrap fabric, cork
117cm x 56cm x 20cm
Each person chose a bottle and in their own time throughout the night, spoke into it and sealed the words safely inside, placing the filled and fully sealed bottle into a hanging model boat.
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When considering what to create with these accumulated bottles, I thought deeply about what the bottles symbolised for me.
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The ornate glass bottles represented strong friendships.
A beautiful alcohol bottle often suggests that it cost a fair amount of money, they are then brought to group gatherings like parties to show that this person wants to invest their money and time to share this bottle, to have a shared experience. It is a small mirror to their value of the relationship.
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As well as this personal meaning, bottles historically symbolise vessels of safety, they hold expensive goods and also can have model ships inside them. Or the common symbol of a message in a bottle, a cry for help.
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This all distilled down to my decision of placing important moments from a night of gathered friends inside the bottles and seal them intentionally.
This became them each speaking something meaningful that they wanted to keep safe into a bottle of their choosing, and sealing the bottle.
Pirate Looks at Eighteen
Finished painting (After sailing)
Video footage of the painting during sailing was taken from a go-pro attached to the mast of the boat, the camera angel was ideally going to replicate the perspective of the origional reference image.
The origional reference image was taken from a helicopter, if I was to do this experiment again I would attempt to use drone footage to perfectly imitate the origional photo. However, the go-pro did provide a largely similar viewpoint of the painting and my boat sailing in sync.
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Origional reference photo from 1992 Painting before taking the masking fluid off
This artwork was highly experimental as the process was one I had never tried, and the outcome was entirely unpredicted.
This artwork caused a lot of intrigue among the sailors of Darling Point Sailing Club, many of whom have never been artistic before but were very excited to partake and assist in this experiment.
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The public nature of this process as well as the joy and interest it generated for visual arts was very rewarding for me, and it is something I hope to replicate in future projects.
Immediately after sailing
Vessel of Words
Nine glass bottles that hold the words of my friends and family, each sealed with individual materials, methods and intentions
Each bottle is a discarded alcohol bottle I have collected over time, cleaned off any identifying labels and markings and offered to the people close to me as vessels to keep their words safe.
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The bottles were filled and sealed at a party which I hosted. I supplied many materials to seal the bottles and my own sealed bottle as an example.
The materials supplied were very intentionally chosen, I considered what each of them implied on their own, and if their primary purpose would be seen as "to seal" or close something.
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The final artwork absolutely achieves what I set out to do. It is a collection of bottles that are seemingly empty but so purposefully shut closed that there MUST be something inside them... something of value.
The process was true to my relationship with glass bottles and created an artwork that could occur no other way. Each bottle is as individual and precious as the person who made it and the words that are sealed inside.
Inspirational Artist
Artist's Breath (1960)
Piero Manzoni
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Giving value to the unseeable
However, Manzoni has used an unreliable vessel to hold his precious breath, unlike my artwork which places emphasis on the security of the word's vessel.
