Group exhibition, Weston College.

My project for the River Fal has been slightly on hold recently as I have worked towards a group exhibition at Weston College which opens on Monday.  The work that is going into the show is still inspired by the same ideas.  Fragile Earth reflected in fragile pieces.  I have created two installations; reedbed and geoforms.  Here are some images.

Reedbed was created by wrapping porcelain slip around reed stems which were fired to 1260C so that the porcelain has become slightly translucent.  The reed stems burned away to leave hollow tubes.  These have been suspended just above a mirror so that they will move slightly in the breeze and the reflections of them are almost continuous with the real thing.  This image shows them not quite ready to exhibit.  There is still some tidying up to be done around the base of each one but I think this image shows the effect that I am trying to achieve.  The reeds are suspended from a roof tile.  In order to check that the tile could take the load I decided to do a trial run with screw drivers as the less precious weights on each strand of line.  The effect is remarkable.  I wonder if the Saatchi Gallery might be interested!

For Geoforms I spread sheets of porcelain slip about 1metre in diameter onto plaster bats, taking time between each addition of clay so that strata built up within the clay.  I then rolled the clay onto a roller and laid it on a paper former which was draped over a bin while it dried to give multiple folds.  When it was fired, because of the extreme thinness of the clay and the size of the pieces a considerable degree of uncontrolled warping has taken place.  This has given rise to unpredictable tears and folds which are representative of the lack of control that we really have over our environment.  Several of these shapes have been grouped onto a bed of slate chippings which gives an informal gallery setting.  I considered placing the pieces individually on plinths lit from below to give the porcelain an ethereal transparency but discarded the idea as creating an image of over formality and making them look too precious.

I think my work is beginning to look a bit like that of Cornelia Parker  http://www.frithstreetgallery.com/artists/bio/cornelia_parker/  who uses visual and verbal allusions to supply cultural metaphors which change very ordinary objects into fascinating installations and whose recent work has begun to focus on issues such as globalisation which are close to my heart.   Both will be shown under my artistic name of Frankie Boase.