IMPRESSIONS
Arts
Independent Study/ Senior Show
The metamorphosis of stoic forms play out before ones eyes. Intricate origami tessellations float slowly through space as they delicately hang from thin metal waves. IMPRESSIONS abstractly engages with speculative social fictions that call on our ability to recontextualize materials and transform ideas in order to challenge the status quo. The artwork invites the viewer to engage with their senses, considering the physicality and ephemerality of experience. These variegated hallucinations are metaphors for the extensive processes we must endure so that we may enact transformation. By examining our history, we can understand our present as a means to cultivate change and ensure equity in our collective future.
IMPRESSIONS is an installation artwork that consists of three massive origami tessellation forms. These shapes are suspended from curved metal beams with each element supported by wire; this allows the pieces to float around themselves and participants in their environment. The origami is constructed using regulated folds in a herringbone pattern that resemble the work of M.C. Escher. This series of straight lines gives the paper a new structure and transforms the delicate sheet into rigid paraboloid forms. These sculptures are an expression of time as our memories transform into a state of flux within our minds and our bodies. This process of transformation is immense; beginning with a small seed, growing into a tree, milled into paper, and then folded into undulating forms. The entropic works gently shifts as the viewer moves through the dimly lit space, bringing the piece to life and inviting new perspectives.
Created in an Americanized scale, the size invites one to reminisce on their adolescence, of feeling small, of being in awe of the world. Contrast between material and structure are mirrored in the metal rods that carry the pieces; hard oar in the form of organic sound waves. As the origami sculptures drift, they are bathed in vivid light. The translucent qualities of the paper allow for dramatic color effect. Shadows play on the multifaceted surface of the tessellation, creating illusions that fluctuate between depth and erasure. This transition of colors explores visual phenomenons of color theory with additive light. As the hues morph they entrance the eye and invigorate the imagination.
Synthesized tones and distilled herbs fill the air with fleeting nostalgia. A curated blend of rosemary, camphor, frankincense, spearmint, and lemongrass are emitted into the air, instantly engaging with the viewer as they enter the room. Calming camphorous scents are contrasted with refreshing spearmint and lemongrass as a means to revitalize the senses and resituate the body into its new environment. Likewise, sound is created in collaboration with botanicals. Rosemary, spearmint, and lemongrass are recorded using a PlantWave MIDI device: this allows for the reading of slight electrical variations in the living plant through electrodes that are placed on the leaves. These variations are read as sound waves that are then converted into data. This data is translated into synthesized sounds for the installation. This too is evocative of the transformation and refinement of natural materials; a process of unveiling. Collaboration between human creation and healing herbs allows for the documentation and development of transcendent memories.
Traditional technique combines with contemporary art practice to express the ways in which small gestures contain the potential to create immense change. The cultivation and refinement of flora express the power of persistence. This process based art installation inspires audiences to understand the potential of dedication. That art, community, and creation don’t require immense means, and that one must simply begin and commit to a development in order to implement metamorphoses.
