kingBIRD: Body

Body

I am currently obsessed by trying to persuade the material to tell stories and reveal what is hidden inside it. One of my focus points is to merge the liveliness of performance and the 'weight' and sculptural qualities of the material- to make it come alive. Bringing out the best of these two processes and leaving behind, empty gestures and static and enclosed formats and shapes. 

I am going to tell you much more about these things.

• The first picture is the remains of a performance I did. The objects are all sculpted on my body, since I'm very interested in traces I am probably going to pay a lot of attention to these left-overs.
• The picture in the middle is a still from the Danish director Lars Von Trier's Antichrist. Although, I have mixed feelings about my Nordic legacy - I am interested to find out more about with which traces it has affected me. They say it is good to read the book, so you know what you are burning - and as I will find out which ones to let go of and which ones to save from the fire I will let you know.
• The last picture is also from one of my performances, this one was inspired by Faust. My aim is to make the sculptural process beautiful in itself and limit the distance between the artist and the sculpture.

kingBIRD: Butterfly Valley: Permanent Installation V

Images from the process

 

I've been working in two different studios for this installation. My former studio which is located in the heart of the city center. The other one in the picture below is Lone Kirketerps studio in the urban harbour areas. In the images above are the butterflies glazed and ready to go into the kiln for the firing.

 

kingBIRD: Butterfly Valley: Permanent Installation IV

Making the butterflies in clay

kingBIRD: Butterfly Valley: Permanent Installation III

Making the plaster moulds

Foam board, pins, plastic, water and plaster. It's all I need. I'm a simple girl. Well, some time, good judgement and a little patience helps too.

Between the picture above and below, something funny happened, but I was alone so I couldn't catch it on camera. When I say funny, I'm using irony, or it is true in that manner - it would have been fun for you! And for me; less entertaining! I was making plaster moulds. Plaster moulds are a great tool for clay. You can press the clay into the plaster mould and it picks up every detail from the mould and the clay releases very easily from the plaster surface without sticking to it.

But making these moulds can be a bit of a nightmare for some of us. I do have some friends who really enjoy plaster work and make the most elaborated and truly amazing looking moulds. I don't hope they read this post and see these moulds. But the thing is; I'm the true genius of course, why spend more time than necessary on some moulds that are only going to be used a few times? (And I haven't - only fools get trapped by tools ;-). Of course, this is not true at all, but in this case there are more important things to spend time on during the whole process, and time is an issue for this project, so I really have to make some shortcuts which make function beautiful.

But back to the fun, what you missed out on (and the reason why the camera was banned from the scene) was me and 40 litre of plaster dancing round in the studio. While I was trying to persuade it to stay in the right place until it had set, without me being trapped into the big bloc of plaster as well. I did text a friend (just so someone actually knew about this big drama that was going on) to tell him that I was contemplating on the possible outcomes on pouring big amounts of plaster into card board boxes;

1. Would be a very brilliant and time saving idea leaving no cleaning
2. Or would it leave me scraping hardened plaster of the floor for hundreds hours

He just answered dryly; if it was him he would choose a very stable box for the job!? He's a sensible guy. And I was happy to answer him the next day, when he asked about the cardboard box and the plaster, that two butterfly moulds was waiting for me!

kingBIRD: Butterfly Valley: Permanent Installation II

Making templates for the plaster mould

I flew to Denmark to start on the installation Butterfly Valley. I arrived late evening, had dinner and went straight to bed. Next morning, I started to work. Everything has to be made from scratch, moulds and everything and I need to adjust to other peoples studios. I love to visit and work in my friend’s studios, although I don't have my tools and stuff, and materials have to be bought as well. It takes some planning to be on top of that. It looks like I'm trying out this planning in the picture below. If I'm succeeding is more
questionable.

I drew some butterfly shapes on tracing paper and scaled them up with a good old-fashioned-analogue method (I should almost make a tutorial, how that is done correctly). Not, that I would decline a printer or a photocopying machine next time, but sometimes it’s just easier done by hand.

Then I cut up the outline of the butterflies in foam board. Tomorrow, I will use them to form plaster models of the shape I want for the butterflies.

kingBIRD: Butterfly Valley: Permanent Installation I

Permanent installation in Aarhus, Denmark

I've been commisionned to make an installation for a public space in a garden/park belonging to a residential area in Aarhus, Denmark.

When doing an installation like this where people actually live there are many important aspects to take into conderation, practically as well as aesthetically. Doing exhibitions or works for a gallery or a museum venue, you can more or less do as you please as long as the health and safety guy is happy. And if the viewer doesn't like the work he or she can just look the other way. But placing your work permanently in a space where people live, you "force" your work upon them. They cannot escape it and are confronted by it every time they walk by it.

Basically, the work kinda has to last forever and looking good doing so. But one thing is actually really clever; Clay, the material. It might not be the easiest material to work with, it's fragile and breakable. But it can also be done in every shape and in extremely vivid and vibrant colours that will not fade in the sun or otherwise become worn out due to weather. So, it's meant to last forever unless something unexpected happens.

Making a work where people live, I wanted it to be about life in a beautiful and cheerfull way. Encouraging and celebrating. There were three keywords that I immediately got to think of; Home of course and then the two words returning and butterflies. Later, I will tell you more about these three keywords.

Below, you can the first sketches of my installation.