SandraHolleArt

 Catalog of work

Conceptually, I have always been inclined to visualise the heaviness and fatigue and vertigo since these are symptoms that effect me personally, living with MS. I made an animated collage about those issues as part of my undergraduate work. Quiet and rest and patience seem to be the only solution here. Some sort of resting place for my stressed mind in form of a pillow is admittedly a very obvious translation but also a suitable one in this case. Why encode the subject more than necessary...  Here is the initial clip for recap: Now, the pillow/rest theme is reappearing in my sculpture work: wire pillow in the making... ready to be hardened with a rawhide mallet to give it more tension The finished copper work with the intended counterpart of a smooth and heavy concrete boulder Whilst the concrete work is physically demanding, the wire looping Asawa-style I can do sitting down and in-between errands and chores when I need a break. So, the theme of resting and regaining s...

 Here are some inspirations that I collected: I liked the step-by-step display of how a plaster cast is made from a complex shape like this sitting figure. I hope to explore more complex casts in concrete in the future. Amongst all the sculptures in V&A, the bronzes by Rodin really appealed to me. I find the surfaces so tactile and they reminded me slightly of my hand-built concrete forms when they are polished. It would be inbteresting to try and achieve a bronze-like texture like Rodin's but in concrete. Nature always is the best inspiration. This magnificent wilted tropical flower looks so sculptural and reminds me, that there can be beauty in decay.  The presentation of this 'screaming jar' is very inventive. I find that this is a great example of how to elevate an artwork. The colour of the sandbags and the concrete wall frame the terra cotta beatifully. These two columns I found in the cast court of V&A. Columns have been carriers of meaning since the first he...

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p013h27r/barbara-hepworth Hepworth wanted to open up sculpture to involve the viewer. Her technique of  working directly on the material allowed her more freedom to intuitively approach the material. She is referring and interpreting nature (see and rocks) without mimicking it and increasingly using the abstraction to depict her feelings through those shapes. Hepworth also projected her feelings about human relationships, especially between mother and child. A process of gradual abstraction is very prominent in these pieces of hers. Barbara Hepworth wanted her sculpture not only to be looked at, but experienced. Hepworth encouraged people to touch her work, Therefore, she put great consideration into the tactile properties of her sculptures, be it immaculately smooth, polished or coarsely marked by her tools. The pierced form became a revolutionary almost trademark feature which allowed the sculpture to integrate more into the surrounding...

I am thrilled about the fact that I found a way to make concrete look delicate and soft rather than fuel what is common about concrete - the invasive, cool, heavy, brutalist and industrial characteristics. In order to determine a shape, I find it helps to model a core in paper pache first. When I add further layers of concrete mixes, both materials form a solid and stable bond. As explained in a previous posts about using fire https://sandraholleart.blogspot.com/2021/05/work-in-progress-so-far-part-three.html I applied this method of using the combustable properties of paper and the staining effects of smoke to the following objects. It enabled me to literally refer to inflammation and the loss of cognitive function as a possible result, e.g. showing as brain fog or vertigo... but also create intriguing visual and tactile results: 1 using a previous hand built bowl as a forma to create a thin paper mache core; 2 adding several layers of concrete mix to both sides; 3 leaving the edges e...

Throughout my work, there is a certain surface pattern emerging and re-occuring. I first achieved the effect of those meandering lines in different colours more or less unintentionally when first experimenting with different coloured layers about two years ago. I liked the outcome as it offered me various options to use this effect more targeted. It reminded me a bit of the characteristics of mokume gane or the pattern of damaskus steel and I wanted to understand the process and hoe to get a more controlled outcome. These are examples of patterns created by layering different shades of steel, folding and forging the material multiple times, then grinding it down until the desired pattern emerges I realised it would be more suitable to try different ways in clay first in order to develop the effect in concrete more efficiently. For the clay samples, please see the previous post: https://sandraholleart.blogspot.com/2021/05/more-clay-pieces-in-inlay-tecnique.html

As learning and experimenting should never cease in order to evolve and progress, I'm glad to have done some more pieces that will inform and refine my work process. For some forms, the clay and concrete seem to have an even more symbiotic relationship than I first realised. The clay forms shown in the previous post with the negative features of burnt away combustable matter I intend to use for casting. I'd like both capture those features that were only possible to achieve during a kiln firing as well as combine these with the qualities of cast concrete. The clay becomes important again now as I used it to make and imprint (negative form) of the fired piece. I then walled it up with more clay so I could cast the concrete mix into it in order to get a copy of the original that I could modify further. I used different properties of clay and concrete here: clay dissolves in water, concrete cures or hardens through water. When the concrete had cured, I washed the clay off and got ...