Where the Surface Gives Way

Where the Surface Gives Way explores the transformation of deadstock synthetic fur through an experimental process of heat alteration. Originally soft, tactile and recognisable, the petrochemical-derived textile is subjected to heat until its familiar surface begins to shrink, melt and disappear. Areas of fur remain alongside exposed, fused and perforated sections, holding different states of the material within a single work.

The process is deliberately responsive. Rather than working towards a predetermined image, I follow changes occurring within the material, allowing heat, resistance and chance to influence the developing surface. Making becomes a means of enquiry: a way of discovering what the material can become when its manufactured identity begins to break down.

As the fur recedes, the resulting forms suggest other kinds of surfaces: eroded earth, scorched vegetation, mineral deposits, lichen or geological formations. Yet these associations remain uncertain. What appears organic or geological is produced from synthetic fibre.

The work considers this instability between recognition and misrecognition. At a time when petrochemical-derived materials are increasingly entangled with natural environments, Where the Surface Gives Way asks where one material identity ends and another begins, and what might emerge at the point where familiar distinctions start to dissolve.