Jan Mortimer

Jan Mortimer has helped inspire my fabric pieces. I like her use of different colours, textures and stitch. This is what I like to do within my work, it makes the piece intriguing and adds a lot of depth. I like Mortimer's use of household objects such as jugs, bowls and plates. This again relates to my work based on the everyday. Everyone see's these objects just as much as the people that constantly drink tea/coffee.

Linda Hutchins.

I love these pieces by Hutchins, with the sheer, delicate fabric. She has used similar fabrics to me with the silk tea bags.

I like the Plant encased within the fabric, it also reminds me of the tea bags.

Fabrics have always been a passion of mine... so what do fabrics mean, what sort of emotions do they trigger?

Well.. for me they allow for the viewer or person to interact with the textures and depths to the fabric. I believe that the textural appearance allows the audience to relate to them. Using fabric and textiles makes me want to go and touch the material and get a good feel for the fabric, it makes the piece look somewhat personal and meaningful.

After all fabric is a part of the everyday.

Christian Boltanski

I have always been inspired by Christian Boltanski, his work is mainly focused on life, memories and death. I visited his exhibition in the Grande Palais, Paris in 2010. The exhibition consisted of a large pile of clothes surrounded by several other square sections of neatly placed clothes. The room was filled with a overpowering, thumping heart beat that echoed around the vast space within the Grande Palais. As I sat and watched the giant red piece of machinery creep down and pick up the selected pile of clothes and then just drop them back down again, i began to think about human life and death, it was a very moving piece as i looked at the clothes in the pile as representing life and each item represented a person. As i walked around the space i noticed that the square sections had there own individual heartbeat again representing human presence, the idea that this is someone, although the person is not there in physical form, they are there in different ways.

Tracy Emin

I feel that this piece by Tracy Emin allows the viewer to engage on some level with the piece, it has qualities within the piece that allows the viewer to relate to the unorganised items across the floor. The bed covers flung back suggests a hectic lifestyle. A bed is quite an intimate place and some people may be vulnerable to show their messy side so over all I feel that this is quite a personal piece that everyone can relate to. The piece represents a human lifestyle, the objects around the bed indicates to me that its a woman's bed or a woman's 'side' of the bed, possibly the life of a working woman too, the unorganised objects around the bed maybe suggests that they have no time to clean or keep tidy with a hectic lifestyle. I have begun to focus on the lifestyles of people and the everyday and continuing to link tea with human presence. Thinking about working people, busy parents or even students use tea and coffee to relive stress and worry, the idea that having a tea of coffee allows people to 'fix' things in their lives.

Tina Modotti

I Like the simplicity of the photographs yet the intensity of the thin wires running through the photograph. In my eyes i began to think of this piece again as a metaphor for human presence, everyone uses telephone wires signify human communication. They represent people interacting over the phone. I imagine when I see this piece a audio piece to support it, all different conversations happening overlapping each other so it sounds almost like white noise and you can hear different pitches of voices different tones all blending together to represent human presence.

“And speaking of my ‘personal self’: I cannot – as you once proposed to me ‘solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art’ – Not only I cannot do that but I even feel that the problem of life hinders my problem of art.

Now what is this ‘my problem of life’? It is chiefly: an effort to detach myself from life so as to be able to devote myself completely to art -

And here I know exactly that you will answer: ‘Art cannot exist without life’ – Yes – I admit but there should be an even balance of both elements while in my case life is always struggling to predominate and art naturally suffers -

By art I mean the creation of any sort – You might say to me that since the element of life is stronger in me than the element of art I should just resign to it and make the best of it – But I cannot accept life as it is – it is too chaotic – too unconscious – therefore my resistance to it – my combat with it. I am forever struggling to mould life according to my temperament and needs – in other words I put too much art in my life – too much energy – and consequently I have not much left to give to art – ”

Tina Modotti, July 1925

Nele Azevedo

'Melting Men'

I am beginning to see a trend with my research being focused around ephemeral art, in a away i am focusing on an ephemeral act of a human being even a ephemeral emotion. Tea is also an ephemeral act of human behavior. The melting man consisted of several small ice sculptures of male frames. Puddles formed as a result of the sculptures melting away, it was like another piece was being formed as the sculptures were melting away in the sunlight.