In
situations where a relationship, sequence, or pattern is taken for granted it
is only when change occurs that we are reminded that a pattern exists and what
it is supposed to be. The relationships between the objects we carry or
wear, and our body, are examples of just such a relationship. By
breaking the received pattern, I draw attention to it. I present objects that are almost familiar –
familiar materials in unfamiliar forms - and by reordering the received pattern, I aim to question and re-present these relationships.
Traditional
jewellery is often made of metals and gemstones; hard, cold materials that need
violent intervention in the form of heating, hammering, and drilling to
construct the desirable shapes and forms. Our bodies, and the skin and
clothing that cover them, have very different qualities: flexible, not static; elastic
rather than rigid. To place an item of
jewellery, that is a hard, inflexible form on a body or clothing that is in a
constant state of movement is surely a mismatch?
Thick Skinned is
an investigation of this mismatch, and comprises a collection of once-wearable
found objects. Broken necklaces,
half paired earrings and abandoned trinkets have been dipped and coated in a
tinted, liquid plastic. Although the plastic dries with some flexibility,
the articulated jewellery forms are trapped in a new format and become
fixed. A dangly earring no longer dangles, as it is swaddled in its new
plastic skin, reminiscent of a pupa. The colour of this new coating directly
acknowledges the relationship between the object and the skin, and begins to
visually blur the distinction between them.
Cold, hard materials such as metal and acrylic feel warm to the
touch with this new coating, while forms such as necklaces or chains, are
reformed into pendants or drops.
The
works in Thick Skinned are presented
in a way that hints at wearability, but closer inspection reveals that there is
no obvious way of wearing these reworked forms.
There are no evident fixings, or specific ways to hang or connect these
works to the body. They can however be
held, stroked, pocketed. They no longer
function as jewellery in the traditional sense, but instead have become forms,
or bodies.
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| Thick Skinned Found object © Vanda Campbell 2013 |
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| Thick Skinned, Found object, plastic, thread © Vanda Campbell 2013 |
