Raw beauty #1

For me, art is about the beautiful. It is also about the grotesque - something that is very difficult to accept. Personally, like many who have experienced the inevitable loss of a loved one, art is essentially about reminding us that the unavoidable fact of death is never very far away. 


So, I really wanted to explore and experiment with this idea of life and death as well as to also remind us of the fact that beauty is in imperfection, impermanence and decay. 


I thought it would be ideal to look at the macabre Egyptian ritual of 'mummification' as life and death were an enormous part of Egyptian life. They believed that the body must be well preserved in order to travel into life beyond death. The methods used by the ancient Egyptians was known as ‘embalming’ – in which the dead body is preserved by dehydrating the body quickly.


So, having been inspired by this process, I experimented with creating my very own version of ancient wrapping techniques: 


First I carded some wool.

Then I created layers upon layers of wispy wool, intentionally crossing the fibre enabling it to entangle easier. 

Having done this, I repeatedly soaked the wool in hot, soapy water, which caused the scales on the fiber to open up and slip into one another when agitated.


I then rubbed the cloth gently, every few minutes lifting the top cloth up and repositioning it. I did this for about 30 minutes until the wool became like a hardened shell.

The next step was fulling. On top of my cloth-felt-cloth stack, I placed a bamboo mat (a sushi-like mat) and rolled the whole thing up tightly. I rocked the bundle back and forth (with a little help from my art teacher!) to create friction. 

I then cut up and then stitched together the short bandages of newly-made felt, thus allowing the garment to restrain the sitters as well a to create lifelike and natural forms. 


This process ultimately enabled me to create dynamic silhouettes and corsetry shapes which eventually resulted in an ephemeral garment (or my walking sculpture as I like to call it!)


Here is a little sneak preview: 

Furthermore, in a attempt to also teach the acceptance of transience, I distorted the surface of the garment by piercing and puncturing it with holes:

As my first outcome, I hope that this freely hanging, ephemeral, fragile, slaughtered yet oddly seamless garment is successful in giving people a new meaning to 'raw beauty'.


Enjoy!