Kapoor’s Void

Leviathan (interior), 2011Anish Kapoor, at the Guggenheim Bilbao, March 2010Anish Kapoor is an Indian-born British sculptor, having lived and work in London since the early 1970s. He first came to notice with his biomorphic sculptures made from elemental materials such as granite, limestone, marble, pigment and plaster. In September 2009 he became the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.

I first discovered his work in the early 1990s. I remember pieces like black holes: dark blue eggs and domes, such as At the Hub of Things, exhibited in a stark white room. They yawned their vastness into eternity, swallowing the light. These were relatively small pieces, yet their impenetrable solidity seemed somehow to convey an immense presence – like the enigmatic obelisks in Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. They confound and defy you, yet offer a wordless challenge.

At the Hub of Things, 1987. Image from Well this is new.Kapoor said then of his work, “In the end, I’m talking about myself. And thinking about making nothing, which I see as a void. But then that’s something, even though it really is nothing.”

His work grew bigger and bigger, until they were really set on a vast scale, engulfing the landscape, imposing their enormity on tiny human beings reduced to the size of grasshoppers. You stepped into his work – literally – and entered another universe where time stopped. Smaller pieces, mirrors, reflected their surroundings, disappearing into the landscape.

Dirty Corner, 2011

Leviathan, 2011Of the extraordinary Leviathan, which was the annual ‘Monumenta’ installation at the Grand Palais in Paris, Kapoor says, “A single object, a single form, a single colour... My ambition is to create a space with in a space that responds to the height and luminosity of the Nave at the Grand Palais. Visitors will be invited to walk inside the work, to immerse themselves in colour, and it will, I hope, be a contemplative and poetic experience.”

Explore his work in greater detail on his wonderful website. At first the single page of text can be mind-boggling, and finding a particular piece can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but the picking the way through the trail is rewarding. There are numerous galleries of his pieces, as well as works on paper, his sketchbooks and links to press material. 

Tall Tree and the Eye, 2009Cloud Gate, 2004. Image from Life. Style. etc
Sky Mirror, Red, 2006Untitled, gouache on paper, 2010

Leviathan, a work in progress; click on ‘Thought Experiment’ on Kapoor’s website and access his working process

Images from Kapoor’s website unless otherwise indicated.

Be Still My Bleeding Hearts

My two favourite heart prints, bursting with passionAnd here is my Bleeding Hearts potato print pattern. Poor little things. The blood … I mean, paint is spurting everywhere. That happened as I lifted the potato off the paper. Funnily, as I was designing the simple pattern, I realised I needed an extra heart and ended up merging two dud hearts into one. Now, isn’t that a lovely thought to finish on?

Lessons in Potato Printing

I finally got round to trying my hand at potato printing. Before I started, I thought, how hard could it be? After all, tiny ten-thumbed primary school children do it every day of the year.

Although it was not in fact difficult at all, there were a few things I learned in the process:

1. Cut through your potato straight as possible using a very sharp knife (not recommended for said tiny ten-thumbed primary school children)
2. Make sure your paint is not 15 years old and either dried up in the tube, or separated into oil and pigment, with the oil all in the top of the tube
3. An even not-too-thick, not-too-thin consistency of paint is best (I call this the Goldilocks principle); a palette knife is helpful in spreading the paint
4. A lot more pressure than expected is required when stamping

Potatoes get the chop!My first few heart stamps bled all over the place. This was disheartening (later when they had dried, I decided I rather liked these bleeding hearts). The next series of hearts were all stumpy and broken. On my third go I managed to stamp a few acceptable hearts with judicious manipulation of my wonkily-cut potato, (although in my heart I felt this was cheating).

I plan to create some fun surface patterns from these impressions. Until then, check out the fun Hipstamatic pics on my Facebook page.

*Apologies for all the puns. 

Video Stars

It’s been a year in the making, but the two children’s book apps I have been working on are nearly finished! We’re ironing out the app of the second book in the series, and I have just a few more bits and pieces to finalise.

On Saturday we shot the promotional video, with my client – Bridget Cull, the author – and I working at our desks. They were not really our desks, and Bridget was not actually writing rhymes, but I really was demonstrating some illustration techniques live on camera. (Demystifying the trade – eek!) Later, Bridget demonstrated the various aspects – fairly simple animation – of the app.

The video was shot by Adam Perry and is being produced by Liz Re. We can already tell that working with professionals – as opposed to muddling along with amateurs wielding a DSLR – will make a huge difference to the marketing campaign Bridget is planning. (I was, however, disappointed that the hair and make-up artists were inexplicably not in attendance. I am sure I put in a request for them.)

Hopefully we will be launching the video on YouTube and the apps in the iTunes store in May, so stay tuned.

Love Lace

Tree, Waltraud Janzen; hand and machine embroidery on net, using thin nylon net and polyester threadI certainly do Love Lace, and was very excited to visit this exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney in early March. 134 artists from 20 countries create intricate artworks that go far beyond the traditional textile techniques that were primarily used to trim our grandmothers’ petticoats.

Lace reveals and conceals, suggesting sensuality when utilised in garments. Yet when lace is worked into architecture, interior design and sculptures – sometimes on an enormous scale – it is the interplay of light and shadow that becomes riveting.

Curator Lindie Ward broadened the definition of lace to include any ‘openwork structure whose pattern of spaces is as important as the solid areas’. Materials used in these works include gold and silver wire, linen and silk as well as mulberry paper, tapa cloth, human and horse hair, titanium and optical fibre.

Overall, the exhibition was awe-inspiring and beautiful – I easily whiled away a few hours. It is easy to see why lace has fascinated artists and craftspeople, as well as the fashionable, for centuries. The possibilities and applications are endless, and the digital age can only enhance them.

(NB, this selection of images was largely dictated by the fact that the photos were taken under very low-light conditions with a hand-held camera; go to the website for a comprehensive catalogue and artists’ statements.)

(Left) Whitework, Anne Farren; machine-embroidered lace, laser-cit Geraldton Wax motif, drawn thread work, hand embroidery and appliqué on Fuji silk, silk organza, silk habutae. (Right) The Lost Princess, Yogesh Purohit; appliquéd felt flora and fauna motifs hand-stitched on tulleCollar of Petrified Lace, Wendy Ramshaw; two collars to be worn together: cut stainless steel, powder coated [in pillar-box red]A Brief History of Time, Jenny Pollak; installation: hand-cut archival paper, office paper (850 x 1801 x 1740mm)Chantilly Necklace (detail), Lenka Suchanek; neckpiece: bobbin lace using black enamelled copper wire with Swarowski crystals; centrepiece made in gold-plated wireVenezia, Brigitte Adolph; cast sterling silverCyanea (detail), Luiza Milewicz; light: weaving and laser cutting using optical fibres, laser-cut acrylic, LED light source, powder-coated aluminium and glass beads [jellyfish shape]Nightshades, Dina Baumane; coloured, glued and machine-embroidered using polyester thread, synthetic fabric and leaf skeletonsSpring Summer Finale 2011, Tony Maticevski; dress: silk chiffon, silk crepe-de-chine, silk-satin backed crepe; handmade flowers and rouleaux web laceThe Moving Pattern (two of five pieces), Tomy Ka Chun Leung; Adobe Illustrator, laser-cut pasteboard; highly commended student workItalian Bobbin, Marian Smit; paper sculpture: cut paper