Frances Hansen came in to talk with us about her art and processes. We also viewed a short film about gleaning. Or in other words, the job of picking up scraps after a harvest is finished. Also, we took a trip to the city in order to view a few galleries, in particular two rooms.
When Frances began to talk about the materials she likes to use within her art, it intregued me that her processes were very similar to that of a gleaner. The first step she takes whenever she wishes to make art is to collect. She spoke of often visiting second hand stores or even local dumps to find these materials. Often her materials were pure rubbish. Cardboard, pot plant tags, plastic slips or bags. Retro whicker trays were a favrite. Things that people would usually think little of and throw away. But not Frances. As a gleaner, people collected items which had been disguarded due to breakages, faults, or purely from being old stock, using them for their own personal use. This can include food, furnature, or other items of interest, mainly because they were poor, or had little money for new items. Frances was being just as economical. By gleaning for the materials she needed, she took pleasure in knowing that the objects she has gathered from the dump or local op shop would now have a brand new life. An extended life, transformed into pieces of art. They would no longer be adding to the dump.
As we viewed the two rooms gallery, another artist we viewed who enjoys collecting materials to work with Judy Darragh. Most of her Art is compiled from gleaned objects. There was a large installation work composed out of hundreds and hundreds wine corks, dipped in various colours of paint. She too, makes new life from dead objects.
I read about this artist in detail from the two rooms website, http://www.tworooms.org.nz it states - "Throughout her career, Judy Darragh has brought to our attention the flagrant waste of the consumer society by using our left over debris to make witty sculptural assemblages and installations shamelessly reeking of sentiment."
Her art is a representation of our gluttonous wastages. It amazes me at how many bottles of wine must have been drunk to equate to the ammount of wine corks she had collected from the streets to create her artwork with. The image above is a photograph compiled of small toys that she has sprayed silver, and dripping with various melted acrylic sheets. In Franceses case, her cheap materials come to a big advantage, selling her two dollar trays for over 100 dollars a pop! All she has done is add her own personal element to each tray. Now Thats what I call a profit! If we all decided to waste less of our waste we too could make cash from trash, and save the environment all at the same time! Couldn't we?
For me, my art does not come from the street. Although I decide not to scrape the contents of my bin onto the road, I do not have a large obsession with saving the world from plastic whicker snack trays. To be Frank, I don't give a Bob's arse about the planet. Nor do I wish to use up the very last drop of paint before starting a new tube. However, I must say do enjoy the feeling of history that can come from an old object. It leaves me to wonder what type of person may have previously owned the object and why. Occasionally I might collect and use old materials, or dirty burnt paper, but this is merely for effect. I love the feeling of layering papers together, or painting over many layers so that you can see each part. This a reason for my liking towards watercolours and ink. They can be as opaque or as transparent as I wish. I can build my layers as many times as I want, and over anything that I want. There are also many techniques involved with watercolours, which is something that I feel to have such flexibility is wonderful. Restrictions always annoy me. For me, freedom is the key to my art. If I wish to paint with mud, so be it. YOU wont be stopping me.
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