CATHERINE TAYLOR PARRY
My practice stems from an investigation of materials that are valued and removed, limestone and lead from the mountain where I live and the material processes of calcification, of rusting, decay and natures renewal. Looking also at with the strength and tensions within the rock during extraction.
My initial approach was through painting which I created looking down at the surface of the mountain through maps and OS images from above , from a bird’s eye view. I was shocked by the physical human changes that had taken place over time and I imagined the surface of the earth as a skin marked by this activity and covering a complex labyrinth and visible and invisible scars, voids, chambers, canals, lakes, decay and remnants of abandoned industry and human activity almost hidden from above. The paintings I created used planar distortion and textural motifs as well as layering and altering to embrace the passage of time. I experimented creating layers, changing colour, changing composition, changing texture and changing marks to leave traces that reflect the layered marks and changes through history.
This interest in materials has involved using charcoal in its powdered form, which is poured onto wet gesso painted supports to create textural marks, these I combine with drawn marks using charcoal sticks and has led to thinking about where art material comes from and how they can be used to speak to us about our own emotional and life experiences.
Along with this I had been investigating chemical changes creating rusting, through natural processes and with chemicals, changing liquid to solid through plaster and using charcoal, pigment, inks and graphite to create marks on cloth that emphasise the properties of canvas, hanging it with plaster, attaching it to board or taking it back to the cloth unstretched. Peeling the canvas off or leaving it to hang. My work in the expanded field has been influenced by artists such as Gilliam, Grosse and Hallam.
The transformation of one material to another and the qualities involved have been suggested using weight and tension, decay, water and regrowth.
By looking at how materials work together. I have combined objects in metal, plastic, gravel and stone, referencing the transition from value to waste or visa-versa, creating examples of material combinations. through an interest in the vibrancy of objects. My influences range from Arte Povera, particularly Jannis Kounellis, Karla Black, Eva Hesse, Analia Saban, and environmental artists such as Nash and Goldsworthy who share an interest in materiality and painters such as Prunella Clough, Carol Rhodes and Hughie O Donoghue.
My body of work involves both three and two dimensional pieces and installations which highlight my continuing desire to investigate the materiality of art and its processes.
