SHEE, 2018
Shee, 2018
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Image of pastel-colored plaster sculpture with some clear negative imprints of body parts, imprints of horizontal flat surfaces, and several vertical, cascading, dripping forms, all mounted on a large but short wooden base]
SHEE is a process-based and performative sculpture produced in situ during the first month of UNTIL DIFFERENT at Arsenal Contemporary, New York. Inside a painted card and wood 3/4 scale replica of its eponymous space habitat. SHEE, the habitat was designed by architect Barbara Imhof’s consortium – Liquifer – as a European Space Agency commission. The Self-deploying Habitat for Extreme Environments deploys into a 300sq ft space that is able to sustain life in otherwise inhospitable environments such as the surface of Mars or the site of a nuclear disaster. It was reproduced in Arsenal Contemporary in its un-deployed state, when the interior architecture is folded, compressed and stacked leaving sinuous negative spaces within the habitat.
The 14.5 (long) x 5.9 (wide) x 6.9ft (tall) replica was situated at the back space of the gallery and fully rendered at the opening of the exhibition. During the first month of the show, when the gallery was closed, this structure was slowly ‘eaten’ from back to front as I produced the sculpture in private. Like a gigantic slug or corrosive process, I maneuvered my body through the negative spaces available between the life supporting fixtures inside the habitat, leaving a trail of plaster as I went along. The plaster held the impressions of interactions between my body and the surfaces on which it rested or leaned. The plaster was tinted in colors ranging from oxide orange, yellow and red, producing a warm tactile map, a visible trail of what I’d touched and a record of movements that were possible between the habitat’s functional forms. Once an area of the structure was cast this way its paper and wood form was disassembled, exposing the plaster, which hovered ghostly like a fossil - a tactile artifact of the long-gone architecture and missing body.
Shee, 2018
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Image of pastel-colored plaster sculpture with some clear negative imprints of body parts, imprints of horizontal flat surfaces, and several vertical, cascading, dripping forms, all mounted on a large but short wooden base]
Shee, 2018
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Close-up image of pastel-colored plaster sculpture with some clear negative imprints of body parts, imprints of horizontal flat surfaces, and several vertical, cascading, dripping forms, all mounted on a wooden base]
Shee, 2018
(work in progress)
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Image of a tall, rectangular wood beam structure with several vertical wood posts and a roof supporting several walls made of white, painted cardboard. A desk is positioned outside this structure with sculpture tools resting on top.]
Shee, 2018
(work in progress)
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Close up image of pastel-colored plaster sculpture with some clear negative imprints of body parts, imprints of horizontal flat surfaces, and several vertical, cascading, dripping forms, inside of partially deconstructed wood structure with white cardboard walls]
Shee, 2018
(work in progress)
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Close up image of pastel-colored plaster sculpture with some clear negative imprints of horizontal and vertical flat surfaces, and several vertical, cascading, dripping forms, inside of partially deconstructed wood structure with cardboard walls]
Shee, 2018
(work in progress)
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Close up image of white painted cardboard interior space with some white shelves and white walls with a narrow vertical gap through which there is a mostly pink, pastel-colored plaster sculpture with a clear negative imprint of a hand, imprints of horizontal flat surfaces, and vertical, cascading, dripping forms]
Shee, 2018
(work in progress)
wood, cardboard, enamel paint, plastic, plaster
[Image of a wood frame-work structure seen from above exposing curved white painted cardboard walls defining smaller spaces inside the wood structure. A plaster bucket rests on top of a horizontal slat of wood]