My Degree Show is set up at Ambika P3 and Open until Tues 5th June 2018! All Welcome! I have never been so stressed out in my life. Assembling each bread ring on the wall, making sure they dont snap, taking the weight of the combined bread rings into account (Surprisingly enough bread is actually really heavy) and having to paint over the gold bread scrapes made on the white wall I only painted an hr before. If you are studying for an Art Degree and have your degree show in the near future, I tell you this; STAY CALM. Stressing and panicking only makes matters worse and tempers fly.
It is such a surreal feeling to be making intensively for a month before the show, then after the private view you are suddenly cut off. Scary in fact. Anyway, I should probably talk a bit about my pieces.
If you have read my Bio, you would know that my work revolves around questioning the class system; how it divides a community and our poor attempts of warping people’s perceptions of the classes we ‘belong’ to. The working class feel as if they need to ‘climb’ up the scale by fabricating an expensive image of themselves using clothes and jewellery, in order to be accepted in society. Ostentatious chunky gold chains and lower priced high fashion brands such as Ralph Lauren, are purchased by the lower class and flaunted under the nose of the higher classes in order to gain some sort of social status.
Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake is the most significant source of inspiration to me personally and to my current practise and always will be. It explores the struggles that the lower classes face in a Conservative Britain. Being a member of the working class, this film touched me on a personal level. It emphasized the contrasts in classes; the necessities of the poor are a lot different from the necessities of the rich. This comparison fuels my current practise, the difference between the levels of class are fascinating.
Using play doh bread, I constructed a large ‘chavy’ gold chain to represent those appearing to be affluent. The scale is essential to emphasize the concept of; the bigger your commodity is, the more powerful you look. I arranged it in a way that it creates its own space. The play doh bread is brittle, showing the fragility of the working class and showing the audience that it is homemade.
For the bracelet “Rather a Bitter Truth Than a Sweet Lie”, I used children’s rubber balls from poundland to emphasize the poor material used. I made sure that I chose bright colours so that the balls were apparent through the pearl spray and the white chocolate coating. I wanted the ornate chocolate to melt and gradually expose the working class innards. I use food in my work as a poor material, as a sense of irony. I am wasting food to draw attention to the less wealthy, and to question whether the world would be a better place if the class system was eradicated.
My journey as a student has come to an end and I am opening up a new chapter of my life as a freelance artist.
