Plaster and Paper - a stroke of genius from Denise

An extremely interesting flurry of ideas - ageing shown in glass, working in a semi-sculptural way, pressing my face into a vaseling covered bag of plaster. Seems insane but infact quite brilliant. Atony Gormley, a veritable master of the human figure, provided the start of the conversation with this work below, featuring figures almost pressing themselves throught the walls of a large white cube. Althouhg Gormley is dealing mainly with the human body's relationship with space, there is an element of the harrowing emotion of Much's work in the decidedly lonely way the figures are presented. This developed into exploring the idea of figures pressing through paper/canvas to create a painting with a semi-sculptural quality to it. This captured my imagination, and I am fascinated by the mental image of the shape of a human face pressing through the fabric of a canvas, painting itself into reality, escqaping from the material. This could be an extremely vivid way of exploring the fear of and obsession with aging and vanity I mentioned previously as a potential theme. The idea of someone trying to escape from their own face is haunting and powerful.

I was then introduced to a glass artist by the name of George F Jackson, who uses figures and multimedia in his glasswork to explore the theme of ageing and its effect of beauty- somewhat callously using his wife as a subject for this brutal exploration. The results are fascinating though, contrasting the shapely figure of his young bride with the sagging, lumpen form of his middle-aged partner. This is an interesting look at the emotional responses to ageing.

http://www.gfj-glassartist.co.uk/gallery.html

Thanks Denise!