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Brief description:

My MFA projects explore my physical engagement and gestural interaction with materials and forms. Through the use of materials I create experimental abstract installations to question the border between abstract painting and sculpting in space.

The items in this dossier have been collected around my conceptual framework of new materiality and formalism. I look at the making process, formless, material qualities and also exploring the relationship between body movements and materials in space.

There are some broader structures which are the basis of this collection and the relationship of the items to my work.

The first one is the connection and effect of consciousness on the art work, specifically the effect of awareness and paying attention to everyday life experiences on emotions and body movement and its result in the artwork. I am interested in the artists who bring their consciousness to their artwork.

The next is Mono-ha movement and Gutai group’s attitude of engaging with materials and exploring their properties.

Through this lens I explore the materiality and material forms. I am also interested in the relationship between materials and space. I question how I change the material’s form, how the material changes my body movement and the effect on space.

From Mono-ha movement, my idea is closer to Nobuo Sekine’s attitude than Lee Ufan. Sekine uses the material in a way that raises the question of what is this in front of us, in the viewer, which is an important aspect in my work.  

The important criteria of the artworks in this dossier is: simplicity, unusual forms and materials, going against traditional rules, techniques, materials, forms and nonrepresentational art. I am interested in the artworks which look unusual and chaotic but I can feel a logic behind them.

By pinpointing these criteria, I can see the effect of a few art movements in my collection, such as Abstraction, Modernism, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, Formalism, and New Abstract Expressionism.

I have added tags and categories to help divide the items based on details and keywords. Being able to see which keyword has been repeated helps me place my work into families, such as installation, modern, minimal and so on. I specifically created two tags for circular forms and lines because currently composition between these two elements appear in my works.

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Lost in Thought

Artist : Tony Cragg

Year : 2012

Size : 50x220x300 cm

Media : Wood

connection between this artwork and my practice:

The first reasons that I have collected this item was the title and the form of the artwork.

Cragg has a strong connection with the making process and his use of material. He states that making is a path way for his life. Each of his works leads him to new forms and new idea to make new work and express new emotions.

He is informed by the materiality of the material he uses – but he intervenes and sculpts with his own formal values. he pushes the materials he uses to do something and become something that wasn’t thought to be possible. he uses traditional materials in constructional – different way.

Similarity of my ideas to his, comes together when he says: ” Good ideas don’t make good art necessary”. Making is not only one unique decision, through making we make many decision and express many ideas. It’s a combination of thoughts that happen during time, combination of different emotions and feelings create a unique form.

Recently In my research, I have thought a lot about why I try to create new forms? and why something as a unique formless and nonrepresentational form specifically. Looking at his work I think I found some answers to my questions . His work is unique and not boring for me, even though he has some form which is figurative or representational but because he combines these forms with other forms to create a new conversation.

Sculpting is moving and forming material, experimenting with the material. it is important to mention, he constantly works and combines forms, making something quite organic, voluminous and curved with so many layers out of something as structured as wood. it looks so planned out with sections and mapping and highly processual. I believe that makes him impressive.

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WATERLOO


Artist : Frances Scholz

Year : 2009

Size : –

Media : –

connection between this artwork and my practice:

The way Scholz looks at the artwork is very close to my work. Thinking about creating a form which is not boring and trying to create something new in form. Although she works more in abstract painting, she use space to paint similar to my ideas about activating space or separating a part of space.

My thoughts are similar to her ideas , she wants to create something that hasn’t done before. interestingly she chooses abstract forms in painting. for me transferring painting in space as expanded painting is the way to make something new.

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Common matter series


Artist : Neil Hoffmann

Year : –

Size : –

Media : Wood Fired Stone

connection between this artwork and my practice:

Hoffmann’s work is process-based. He follows the idea of materials creating the form during the firing process. He tries to minimise artist’s conscious decision making and let the material get the form. He places materials such as glaze, clay and stone next to each other. He lets materials react to each other during firing and become one Anti-form that has its own character, rather than the artist forming them.

The firing process plays the most important part in his sculptures. He uses local stones and places them in the kiln. During the multiple firings, stones lose the solid form and become a formless sculpture.

The most important thing that attracts me to his works, is how he uses traditional techniques and moves away from representationality of ceramic objects. How material and making process play and control and the artist absorbs and guid the form instead of limiting the artwork.

Being conscious that we can’t control everything is coming out of his conscious choice of natural material and uncontrolled process such as wood fire for a main making step.

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WEATHERING & VISUAL COMPLEXITY

Artist : Sandy Lockwood

Year : –

Size : –

Media : Wood fired ceramic

connection between this artwork and my practice:

sandy says “My way of making and firing allows for each piece to tell the story of its becoming ” (Sandy lockwood)

Lockwood is the artist that is conscious about her surroundings, in her speech, during ceramic triennial, she talked about how she pays attention to texture, objects in everyday life and how she cares about materiality of the objects.

It is interesting to see a ceramist who cares about materiality of ceramics instead of ceramic as a functional or representational object.

It is important to mention she has a strong relationship with making process and material she uses. She collects specific type of dust or stone and mixes and makes her own materials. In her work it’s so clear that material qualities and making process steps play an important role.

In Her speech she mentioned the term “Meshwork” from Tim Ingold’s books.

Ingold says: ” I have borrowed the term ‘meshwork’ from the philosophy of Henri Lefebvre.” (Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials- Page 12)

Meshwork as something that we all weave in our work from our life experience. Ingold says: “When I speak of the entanglement of things I mean this literally and precisely: not a network of connections but a meshwork of interwoven lines of growth and movement” (Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials- Page 4)

I think what makes an artwork unique and art is when artist finds his or her own meshwork that is woven to the work. And I don’t think meshwork can be a meaning or describing or categorising the artwork.

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Formless: A User’s Guide

Authors : Rosalind E. Krauss and Yve-Alain Bois

Year : 1997

connection between this artwork and my practice:

I got this book recently and I haven’t found time to finish reading it.

There are some elements in my works which align with formless art works but there are some question that I should research more to create a clear connection between my work and formlessness.

As I am not finished with this book, I am going to dot point the parts I am interested in:

Use of term ‘Operation’ which is neither a them, nor a substance, nore a concept to define formless. Use of ‘what we see’ which I found similar discussion in Mono-ha movement, as what is in front of is exactly what we should see.

Formless categories in four section, Horizontality, Base materialism, Pulsation and Entropy.

In general reading I think I should concentrate more on Pulsation and Entropy which I think might be closer to my work. Pulsation which can be described by Morris works and talks about not standing for something else and movement that is Aesthetic. Entropy which can be described by Oldenburg bring disorder illusion into chaos.

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Cretto

Artist : Alberto Burri

Year : 1975

Size : –

Media : Acrovinyl on cellotex

connection between this artwork and my practice:

Burri’s career came in the form of an aesthetic, he exaggerated the processes that led to the natural appearance of fine, hairline cracks in various painting mediums as they aged over time and I use medium which I can create the feeling of aged or changed during the time through making process.

There are a few connection between Burri’s work and mine:

The simplest are : his exploration of abstract art, and his interest in Joan Miro’s artwork.

The next one is the way he uses different materials and pushes the boundary of painting, He confounds the meaning of sculpture and painting and questions the border between them.

The last one is the exploring beauty in his process-based works, the use of texture and formless which is the effect of materiality of his work.

Although his works contain the subject of trauma that is different to my subject of no definition or translation of my work, the use of material and the aesthetic of them and the way he explores the surface aligns with my work.

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Clay Painting (for John Cage and Merce Cunningham)

Artist : Robert Rauschenberg

Year : 1992

Size : 43.5 x 57.8 x 6 cm

Media : Unfired clay on wood panel

connection between this artwork and my practice:

I have selected this artwork only in relation to my new work in which I used clay to paint.

I have a similar feeling about Rauschenberg and Alberto Burri. The texture of material the forms that material created during the time and making process is what I search for in both of these artwork. This work is more significant because Rauschenberg used clay as his materials.

To see a trace of artist’s fingerprint, hand making, and seeing making process are other important elements in this artwork.

Rauschenberg, similar to Burri questions the boundaries between painting and sculpture.

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Formalism

I don’t even know if I should write anything about this or the photo is clear enough.

In most of my work the importance of aesthetic for me was so clear, The visual balance, composition of forms, appearance are things that covers all my ideas. finding about formalism helped me to understand my critical framework.

Choose of abstract for as a universal language, visual balance to create universal element comes out of my works. Learning about formalism helped me to understand what I make and why forms and visual balance are important for me.

I think formalism doesn’t only cover my artwork also answers most of my question about my previous works . In first semester at MFA I was arguing about my identity of being not representative of Iranian girl and searching for a meaning to talk about accepting me as only a human. My struggling of not belonging in a concept of Westerners nor Easterners.

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Phase of Nothingness

Artist : Nobuo Sekine

Year : 1975

Size : 5 15/16 x 35 7/16 x 35 7/16 inches

Media : Bronze

connection between this artwork and my practice:

Sekine was one of the artists in Gutai group, his works are about the idea of relationship between artist and the materials, He has also worked on relationship of the object in space.

The phase of nothingness was the period of time which he was interested in topology, which is the reason behind the title “phase”. In this artwork the idea started from a suspended stone of Japanese garden, which he decided to suspend. As he couldn’t go against the gravity he decided to use stainless steel to reflect the surroundings and creates the feeling of the stone floating in the air.

The connection with my work is in the way he uses materials which complete each other’s existence. By placing one next to the other the normal meaning of the object changes. Each material is separately usual but by placing them next to one another he creates a new unusual experience. They are in contrast but they complete each other. The newness of the object, relationship of it with the space and how the space can add extra dimensions to the work is interesting for me. Also the type of materials which sit together is important, changing one of them can change all of the experience.

Keywords: choice of materials, reflection of space in the material, importance of materials