String Wrapped
2004 – 09
String Wrapped raises questions about people, objects and identity: how do we consider objects once they no longer function in the way they were intended to? Their transformation raises questions about the value and meaning we attach to these objects, the part they might play in defining our own identity and also their use, value, impact and role in our lives, across different cultures, in the past, present and future.
A series of small string wrapped objects contained in acrylic boxes, each box containing objects relating to a particular person’s identity, both connects and separates them. Many of the objects contain traces and memories of their past owners. As the viewer walks through the works they move from the carefully wrapped boxed objects in a gallery setting to works that interact with the building and the space, having both the possibility yet improbability of functioning. The light switch and fire extinguisher look like others in the building, whilst the rope ladder and mop remain close to their original materials, yet have been transformed into art objects.
The wrapped Singer sewing machine draws attention to the form of this iconic object that so many of us keep for its aesthetic qualities or sentimental associations, despite no longer using it. The meticulous wrapping silences, memorialises and commemorates it.
String Wrapped (Chess Game) suggests an absence of rules and competition, the possibility yet improbability of a meaningful game; but it also preserves the memory of a real match played in a tense political climate. String Wrapped (Dartboard) echoes this. String Wrapped (Typewriter) wraps its hidden memories and traces of letters, words and text within.
This body of work developed out of an earlier string wrapped work, My Everyday(2004), exhibited in all or nothing, 2007.
String Wrapped works have been exhibited in the following exhibitions and galleries:
Staff Room, Michael Heseltine Gallery, Middleton Cheney (2016). Staff and Tutor Showcase, Mill Arts Centre, Banbury (2015). Summer, Hemingway Art, Pennwood House, Oxford, 2012. Then and Now, Banbury Museum, 2012. OVADA Gallery Silent Auction, Oxford, 2010. ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2009, Mall Galleries, London, 2009. Art In Woodstock, 2009. X°, Mill Arts Centre, Banbury, 2008. Modern Art Oxford, The Oxford Open, 2008. AAF, London, 2007. OCVC, 2007.
String Wrapped (Typewriter)is featured in Typewriter Art by Barrie Tullett (published by Lawrence King in 2014).