Project Statement
One certainty we have as humans is the intake and exhalation of breath. There is an immediacy and presentness that each of us can experience in a direct sense through meditation or being still. I had an intensified experience of breathing during a psychotherapy session that stuck with me and I though; how would you represent breath as an object? How is the giving and taking of care in a therapeutic situation like inward and outward exhalations? What is the relationship between art and therapy?
When I began making these sculptures, there was a pretty popular podcast I was listening to by Esther Perel (a Belgian born psychotherapist). In it, she talked about the approach of leading her clients down the feeling of experience rather than an explanation of it. During some further research of this idea I came across a specific approach, Gestalt therapy, which is rooted in an experiential form of psychotherapy. This approach focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment and the therapist–client relationship. It was an approach that reminded me of the presentness of breathing.
“The Gestault approach does not examine the past for memories of trauma, but asks the patient to simply focus on becoming aware of his/her present experience. The bits and pieces of unresolved conflicts from the past will inevitably emerge as part of that present experience.”
— Fritz Perels
For me, the experience of art making and undergoing a therapeutic practice are very much related. For instance when drawing from life, the beginning is general; skating over a page broadly to get the overall composition. From those general lines you’ve made, next is making particular marks by using slow, specific observation. Adding these particular details to a drawing starts to give it accuracy. Likewise, after broad discussion, the specific details of conversations in the therapeutic setting are also the ones that provide insight and give clarity.
Process
I used bronze as the main element of these sculptures to create a contrast. The hard, impenetrability and weight of bronze compared to the light and softness of breathing works as a way to make a distinction, while also representing the idea of stillness. These elements of the sculptures are cast from natural textures, both from trees, and reassembled in a new way which is quite delicate. The audience might be able to guess their origins but they are abstract too.
I always visit flea markets when travelling for the purpose of collecting materials: they are like a mini universe of unusual objects and ideas. I had already begun this project, maybe even made the waxes for casting and was visiting a flea market in Dusseldorf. I found some old wooden boxes at a second hand furniture stand and bought them. When I was at the side entrance of the market, a trader was out having a cigarette and saw my purchases. She disappeared back inside and then gifted me the box that is used in ‘Part I’; there is a kind of synchronicity about that when I think back to it.
Materials are not my first consideration when creating sculptures, and I like to work with lots of different mediums. My focus is the relationship between the audience and their experience of the work that is key: my intention is for them to pause while viewing these pieces and to consider their own breath.
National Botanic Gardens
5th September - 18th October 2019 | Open Daily