Folding Clay
I have always imagined how the sense of touch can extend the expressive range beyond the limitations of the visual. My exploration of the connection between the symbolic tactile and abstract visual engaged me in the complex parallel of meaning and unmeaning. Specifically, I began to test the possible relations between my existing visual corpus and playing in an aesthetic “sandbox”-in this case, moulding a lump of ceramic clay. A key point was that this was to be true exploration, with no clear outcome except discovery.
I stretched the lump of clay with my fingers into an extended form, then attempted to fold it back into its original shape. I stopped my action before the reforming was completed, and the clay's form discontinued its metamorphosis. The clay would visually remain in this form for a while, but would slowly disintegrate over time, neither dead nor alive, neither start nor end. I see the clay's folded form as a metaphor for the “in between” state from one form to another. I projected the light directly onto the folding clay in front of the canvas to see the cast shadow boundary that indicates the mysterious territory in the space. Now I have found that the shape resulting from the action appears in the visual “in between,” but once it is located on the 2D canvas, its boundary forms a limited outline of an organic shape that invites some action. Another interesting space is the area between the dark side of the clay and the cast shadow, which reflects each term in darkness.
