STEEL/TIME/MEMORY
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel, skipping rope
180 x 118 x 43 cm
2016-2018
Powder coated steel
120 x 94 x 46 cm
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel
160 x 105 x 43 cm
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel
210 x 92 x 47 cm
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel, mirror, clock pendulum bobs, rear view mirror, reflectors, brass bolts, brass screws
132 x 115 x 30 cm
2016-2018
powder coated steel, mirror, glass, clock pendulum bobs, brass bolts, brass screws
82 x 62 x 20 cm
2010
Pencil, paper, wire, guitar string
15.5 x 12.5 x 4 in
Steel, Time, Memory is a selection of works made in metal that focus on the transitory nature of symbols, history and impermanence.
~
The Lamentation series is a group of 4 sculptures based on Martha Graham’s performances Lamentation (1930) and Night Journey (1947).
Rowena Chiu commissioned the works for the show The Blue Hour. The brief was to make a work based on the twilight period, the atmospheric moment when the sun finally sinks below the horizon. This illumination of the lower part of the atmosphere is a moment when the experience of time and space around the individual can appear to bend and shift.
Martha Graham was interested in the opposition of contraction and release, a concept based on the dancers breathing cycle. This was used to relate to night and day’s open and closed tendencies through our physical and psychological relationship to changes in space and form. The geometric use of steel highlights this tension and references modernist sculptural practices such as Isamu Noguchi, who created the props for Graham’s performance.
Evans was interested in freezing the extreme moments of Graham’s choreography. To cease change, freeze-frame the movement to create an atmosphere of examination and contemplation.
This ethereal notion contrasts with the aggressive material and angular forms giving rise to the tension between the industrial, tense nature of welded steel and the elegant nature of 20th-century dance.
The skipping ropes, some of which are contemporary to Graham’s conception of Lamentations, reference both the ropes she used in her performances and other cultural motifs that were being born at the same time, such as Disney”s Mickey Mouse and Coca-Cola iconic logo. They imply the movement of cultural meaning as much as the dancer’s choreographed actions.
Video link to a silent colour film of Martha Graham dancing extracts of "Lamentation". Filmed in 1943 at Bennington College by Russian-born sculptor Simon Moselsio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klF8Ob8bRSE&t=102s
~
Rimbaud HD and The Quiet Sun are made by combing ideas concerning aesthetics in ancient sculpture, industrial processes, folk art forms (mainly 19th-century weather vanes), domestic superstition and narrative. Both works use clock pendulum bobs as aesthetic weights balancing the composition and highlighting the work’s relationship to time. Viewed from the side, they resemble clock mechanisms or antiquated machines.
Incorporating a broken mirror highlights the uncanny time travel aspect of the work’s references and introduces illusionary depth into the display. Although the shapes and monochromatic colour palette seem to relate to modernism and industrial design, they also relate to contemporary domestic interiors and furniture.
~
Pencil on D String is made from a guitar string and wire sewn onto paper. The resulting shadow was traced in pencil. The drawing attempts to describe the expression and tension between the aesthetic description of existence and the fragility of materials.