Tuesday 5 July 2011

Orifice Tower (Work in Progress)

As much as I love socializing and taking full advantage of London’s amazing nightlife I have some how managed to make a bit more time for my studio practice. And the latest piece that I’m working on is a variation on my recent Orifice Box sculptures. But this time I’ve decided to elevate the work and substitute my signature wheels with a rickety wooden box and scaffold-like framework.


Like my wheeled orifice box structures this one also has a carved elliptical orifice in the front face of the box. This work-in-progress photo shows the top half of the sculpture that will eventually stand at around six foot tall. In the lower right-hand corner of the photo you can see one of my sketchbooks and the working drawing for the new orifice tower.


And here’s a closer view of the drawing – showing a few mid-process alterations.


Being a bit of a night-owl I prefer to work through the early hours. This means that I have the building to myself so can have the radio on pretty much as loud as I like. My friend Lisa gave me an old Roberts radio and the only bearable channels that get a clear reception are Radio 3 and 4, so I tend to mostly listen to classical music while I work.


Anyway – I’ll get to the point. A few nights ago, whilst working on this new piece I happened to be listening to some very fine choral music and it struck me that the orifice section of the work looked a bit like a mouth, singing. So I quickly sketched out this idea for a set of new orifice tower sculptures, each equipped with an internal speaker and collectively playing the same piece of choral music. Hopefully I’ll get to make this new body of work one day but it’s also very likely that it’ll just get relegated to my sketchbook graveyard of creative ideas.

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