EXHIBITION PREP.

With the degree some looming, I thought it's be a good idea to start to think about how I'm going to present my work in a way that represents my work best and more importantly that looks awesome.

Having been down to PickMeUp last month, I got a huge amount of inspiration from the vast array of work on show and the various ways to exhibit. I was especially intrigued by the layout of PeepShow's room, consisting of lots of wooden structures and shelving that contained little models, sculptures, illustrations and textiles. With the variation of both work on the wall, as well as taking advantage of the floorspace available, it really stood out to me as being one of the most interesting exhibits on show.

The Peepshow Collective at PickMeUp 2012

The wooden frames made you interact with the pieces and gave you the opportunity to up close and personal with the work. It made a pleasant change indeed from the usual glass cabinets that we're more familiar with.

Baring this is mind, I've been thinking about how I can combine both three dimensional and flat pieces together that will grab peoples attention. A while ago I'd read an article about an exhibition in Paris, where tattooer (appropriately named) Guy Le Tatooer, framed body parts formed out of latex that displayed his artwork. It gave him the chance to exhibit his tattoos as a form of art behind frames and create absolute striking and eery pieces of artwork on their own. It think they look amazing and would love to incorporate this into my work. 

Latex arms by Guy le Tatooer

As my work, over the last year in particular, has been heavily influenced by the art of tattooing, I intend on trying to incorporate my work onto similar casts made by myself. Rather then using an electrical tattoo gun, I'll probably opt for the less complicated transfer paper, like the ones you used to get in cheap packs of bubble gum. I've no idea if its going to work so by starting early I can afford to make mistakes ( I'd rather not) and work out how to fix them with plenty of time to spare.

With the help of the ingenious John Hind, who is by means no stranger to this at all, I spent today working on making a cast of my hand using dental alginate and rubber silicon. The process was dead easy to do and didn't take too long either but I wouldn't have had a clue where to start without John. We recycled some old silicon that had been previously used by just melting it down again to it's liquid form on a hob, making it completely reusable again and again.

Before all the melting took place we had to make a cast of my hand for the liquid to be poured into. For this we used a mixture of powdered alginate and water that we made a mess with using a kitchen mixer and placed into a container just about big enough for my hand to fit into. I then dunked my hand in and waited for the peculiar substance to set, which only took a couple of minutes.  It's crazy  how much detail the cast managed to pick up from my skin and you could see every wrinkle, hair and crease going. When the silicon was runny enough (technical term), I poured it into the whole where my hand had come out of and waited for it to solidify as it cooled. With me being inpatient, I cut open the mould whilst the cast was still quite warm but all was good and it stayed intact.

Alginate hand cast

I'm massively impressed with how it turned out but there's still a few technical tweaks that need seeing to before anything final is made. The silicon rubber, once completely cooled and dried was still quite soft and flopped about, so before I make a complete model of my arm I need to put some sort of support inside before it sets giving it a skeletal like structure. I'm wanting to fix the arms to the wall of my exhibition space so that they can hold pieces of my work or maybe a sign of some sort. If I use some sort of support inside the arms I think it'll make life much easier when trying to attach them to the board. I'm also going to see if I can add dye to the liquid silicon to get a paler, flesh colour that looks more realistic then the zombie green I used for the prototype. I'm pretty excited to try and apply some illustrations to it later on this week and hopefully make more in the next few weeks.