Moving Soil

︎︎︎ 2016
︎︎︎ Plaster sculptures and video installation
︎︎︎ Various dimensions

In the Material Matters Project, I decided to focus on bricks from the Glen Iris Brick Company made in the 1940s, which I found in the backyard of my house at the time. I wanted to transform the brick in a way that the viewer is unable to see what my starting material was. My main theme is the movement of land, earth and soil, as the bricks are originated from there. I am hoping to portray this through my study of the exterior of the brick such as the surface, texture and colour.

I created collages with organic shapes from photographs of the bricks. I was inspired by the scientific theory of plate tectonics to make the shapes in the collages rotate and move. The plates of the earth continuously, slowly change position, just like my animations.

My artist inspiration for the collages was Barbara Hepworth and Carin Goldberg. When I saw Hepworth’s large sculptures at Kröller Muller in the Netherlands, I was inspired by the organic minimal shapes. At the NGV art book fair I bought a zine by Carin Goldberg. It portrayed very flat, simple and unique shapes that I ended up referring to in my work as well.

I combined the videos with plaster sculptures, which are imprints from broken bricks. The sculptures look like small landscapes or fossils. By pushing the brick into the clay mould, it created small layers which could be connected to the layers of the earth, again, referring to movement. The different heights of the pillar looking sculptures, emphasises the layers in the work.

By placing all the objects on the ground, I wanted to emphasise the connection between the work and the earth.