Artist reference -
Karin Ruggaber
I have drawn many parallels between my own work and that of Ruggaber's. Her work is inspired by the embellishments in building facades to produce a series of wall mounted sculptures which collage various materials within their surface. Working with cement, wood, fabrics. Each individual fragmented cast takes very architectural forms, but when installed each component combines to create large facades in the shape of crescents or other geometric forms.
- Purposefully uses an unpredictable casting method in many of her works
Karin Ruggaber
An outside of a house
25 April to 29 June 2013
Karin Ruggaber, Relief #116, 2013
One parallel of our work is within the colour palette. The artists makes use of polychromatic sculpture, all within a pastel, soft colour scheme which appears more natural. There is a very precise process of arrangement within her work, she clearly acknowledged the importance of space and is interested in form and how compositions can be created from individual components.
The combination could be interpreted as a constellation, or a structural architectural relief and also plays with scale.
multi-part, polychromatic sculpture, the individual elements of which are made primarily of moulded concrete. This constellation of smaller components is precisely arranged and fixed to the wall to make up a large diagonal relief that stretches from the floor to nearly the height of the ceiling. she employs the diagonal, so that a large triangular shape emanates from the furthest corner of the doorway and sweeps across into the centre of the room. Ruggaber has described this work as an attempt to "build a haptic floor". These two large, singular works each inhabit their respective domains. Put simply, a work for the wall and a work for the floor.
"sculptural propositions – nominal, open-ended objects"
Karin Ruggaber, Relief #117, 2013
The artist works with a range of different media considering materials in relation to their dynamic and association with particular activities, or representational function.
relief sculptures based on an invented and self-generating vocabulary of form and materiality, using materials such as concrete, plaster, fabric and wood. Her work centres on ideas around figuration, ornamentation, aspects of touch and the relationship to architectural scale; core interests are a sensory experience with architecture, looking at the imaginary and intangible components of perceived values and their translation into public space. Principles of ordering and layering are set against the roughness and imprecision of material and surface. Ideas around architecture as manifestation of aspects of territory - as something that holds rather than can be held - form part of the wider project and narrative for the work.
The Rock Room Project
Collaboration with the Department of UCL Earth Sciences and UCL Museums
Work looking at matter, materiality and form, as well as the fantasies surrounding the disciplines
Attempts to find new forms of exhibition making, to look at the potential of collaboration and of thinking about material and sculpture through all the senses.
Spaces that represent other forms of logic, beliefs, knowledge and disciplines such as geology, astrophysics, or applied art.
Casting and the elements
Materials - plaster fabric and wood, concrete mixed with fabrics, using a soft colour palette, creates an interesting texture.
Research at UCL - connects to my practice through their use of materials, earth sciences, working in relation to the earth and materiality, attempts to find new forms
Cast objects embedded with fabrics, fragments of materials
Using colour and the process of terrazzo is echoed in the colours and other elements, terrazzo of fabric
Creating larger shapes and compositions in work
My work
Instead of starting making work from a contextual point I was primarily engaged with a play with materials, attempting to see how much I could push the material of concrete, what actions can be done to a material
Experimenting with materials, need to contextualise it - understand its connection to the agency of objects and materiality - what modes of display I am using
E.g. playing with colour, texture, shape, embedding different materials such as acrylic, building compositions within the cast. Different ways of working
Work is all about process, this is where my work comes from
Karin also works from process driven research - recent research projects about geology and earth scientists or UCL collection of rock specimens. Connection to archaeological
Connection with the process by which I make it, reaction to architecture. Architectural scale, sensory experience, layering, set against roughness and incision, controlling materials. Casting is by its nature a very controlling process - very defined by the mould you create
Other aspects like what material is poured in, are any other materials added, the surface it is being poured into.
Chiselled concrete sculptures
By me chiselling away the edges of my casts I am subverting this process and literally breaking it into something different and less recognisable - breaks away from the constraints of the mould. The shapes also reflect the terrazzo forms within the structures. The surface also reflects that of a fossil - the objects inside appear encapsulated - as if being held in the surface for long period of time. It also draws a connection to my research in rock formation - with this being a similar way in which sedimentary rocks are formed - with these terrazzo fragments appearing like pieces of stone that have become encased in the formation of a larger stone.
Motor piece, has an added connection,
Scouring and etching the surface. Influenced by terrazzo, the texture and pattern,
Idea of fragments and fragmented forms, smashed edge to draw attention to fragmented and shattered form, disrupts the clean and perfect square
Looking at Archival museology display of artefacts using metal hooks
Motor, references the process, the tool cutting the surface,
Such a delicate device, as it moves, creates an illusory arc of a fan, due to speed, has an ethereal quality, perception of movement creating a from
Creation of a drawn line, very distinct elements that in some way male no sense, but poetically it makes you think of other types of sound, including the cracked paving
Elements that speak to a process or different gestures
Palette of terrazzo is very delicate, a bit like confetti, and way they are dispersed,
When the motor runs, and the fluttering movement created, sound like bird wings, makes a very solid material feel like its ethereal
Sound changes over time, as it digs through, can change the position of the arc
Cuts through in different positions,
See dust flow down from the score, dust sits onto hooks, weight of particles stuck onto surface,
Spin of terrazzo being a roman invention, with clash of metal components, disrupts
The slab stone appears trapped, like being in a dentists chair
Due to way its being presented, like a museum exhibit that could be an ancient artefact
Treatment of it is like its trying to excavate something else out of it
Bringing out another history or narrative out of it
Choice of material that has associations with history, roman
Relationship to building and history of terrazzo flooring. Connection to Roman Wall painting, Pompei, first style of painting was to mimic stone, emulate different stones, way of making homes loom luxurious without expense of stone
Steer away from bright colours, look less commercial. Make faux natural marble, something organic with pastel shades. Act of putting on wall rather than floor, plays with our relationship between horizontally and verticality, read as painting as terrazzo appear like they are both fixed in place but could be falling.
Next Steps
Resolving work - being more playful with modes of display - ways of drawing attention to the materiality of the objects I have created - a combination and layering of materials - modes of display that draw attention to the production and artist process - e.g. use of aprons within my sculptures. The series of experiments on the surface of objects can be further explored through use of motors and other kinetic processes - using contemporary materials like bungee cord, metal and electronics to disrupt the traditional casting processes of plaster and concrete. Works can also be resolved through titling - these titles can also reference the actions or motion within the work to connect back to ideas of materiality - the agency of the objects as well as the process - the physical actions that take place on the surface of materials.