Since I discovered Karen Casper's work last year, I have been captivated by her multimedia creations.
Her inspirations run alongside mine including vintage embellishments, the mythical and sea-coral. She uses a variety of techniques such as Devore, fabric painting, stitching and her trademark three dimensional embroidery with glow in the dark thread. I think the layered aspect to her lace makes the work so much more captivating, it demands a second and third look.
Karen's market seems to be for bespoke one-off creations which means she can afford to spend both time and money on precious materials and the customer can ensure no one will ever have the same.
Her creations are normally an accessory to the body which can be viewed not only as fashion for editorials but also as exhibition pieces. I also think costume definitely has a strong influence over her work and sculptural embroideries. Her latest creations....
Ventalina - 3D embroidered fan
The piece is insipred by the growth and cultivation of the undewater world named after Gorgonia ventalina, the purple sea fan, which is an especially beautiful and delicate coral whose latticework of branches is reminiscent of lace. I used a 19th Century French lace fan as the base and applied 3D glow in the dark embroidery that includes vintage lace. Other techniques used within the piece include devore, digital print and other fabric manipulations. Finally embellished with vintage pearls and jewels. The work is part of the Manchester Museum's Coral: Something Rich and Strange Exhibition
Violet - 3D embroidered headpiece
I created the contemporary headpiece using pieces of Gawthorpe's antique lace,combined with glow in the dark thread to produce a 3D embroidered sculpture. I also chose two headpieces from their collection to gain inspiration from. A steamed fur felt skullcap style hat from 1930-40. Trimmed with leaf shapes of the same fabric and a section of gold chain and a ladies bonnet from 1860-1890. It has a plaited straw triple brim lined and trimmed with velvet and is decorated with artificial lily of the valley and orange blossom flowers and flowers made from swans down.
I love the combination of neutral colours and the odd dashes of bright. I can very much identify with Karen Casper's context for her work. The aim of my work is also all about the accessory whether that be to decorate the body, an interior of a house or paper decoration. I feel inspired to create a super decorative parasol, a mask and I want to bring together my love of millinery with my own prints and embroideries.
I also have wanted to do a photo shoot for my work for a long while. I have ideas as for how I would stage this. In particular, my current work would look fabulous on models riding on a carousel.
http://www.tulleandcandyfloss.co.uk/violet-and-ventalina.html
After my tutorial with Brian Falconbridge I decided to do some research into some of the key people in the art world that he said I would be interested and inspired by.
Kurt Schwitters
In 1917 the 30 year-old artist was drafted into military service, which he spent in the orderly room, due to his suffering from epilepsy. He was discharged after four months. The impressions of the war and the inflation made him a modern artist, who even left Expressionism behind; his first collages emerged in 1918, for which Kurt Schwitters used litter found by chance.
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| Cover of Anna Blume 1919 |
His art and literary texts became a Dadaist institution in Hanover, which he called "Merz", a fragment of the word "Commerzbank". "Anna Blume", a collection of poems and prosaic texts published in 1919, made him famous far beyond Hanover's boundaries. He got in contact with Herwarth Walden, Hans Arp and Tristan Tzara and took part in the "Sturm"-exhibitions in New York and Zurich.
From 1923 on he worked as a commercial artist, graphic designer and typographer for several companies from Hanover and beyond. Apart from this professional work, he continued the collages and material pictures of the "Merz"-series.
In the mid-30's he was successful on an international level for the first time; in 1937 he emigrated to Norway. His exile in Norway was followed by his escape from the German troops to England.
In 1941 he became involved with the London art scene and his work began to engage with British society and culture, shaped by the use of new source materials for his collages and poems.
His work began to be shaped by the material culture of the wartime city. The fragments of paper and found objects that he collected from London’s streets were incorporated into his collages and assemblages. As his work was made from discarded everyday items, it reflected the environment in which it was made. The materials he used included sweet wrappers, bus tickets, metal toys, pieces of linoleum and a scrubbing brush.
This form of recycling materials into art is something that captures my interest. I think where possible it is kind to the environment to use and re-use naterials again and again. It's also more inspiring for me to deal with less prescious "scraps" rather than clean paper.
Schwitters also explored the transformation of ready-made images, using photographic reproductions of nineteenth-century paintings as a starting point for collages. He was fascinated by English words and typography, and incorporated fragmentary phrases which make references to contemporary popular culture and politics, and also seems to comment on the process of adapting to making his work in a new environment. Words, as disscussed previously are a massive influenece of mine, to take this forward I would like to find some poetry with the of sealife and/or mermaids.
For Kate- 1947
Kurt Schwitters died in 1948. It is only after his death that his life's work is appreciated internationally. Schwitters was far ahead of his time and strongly influenced the art of assemblage of the neo-dadaist artists.
Das Undbild - 1919
Photos combined with text and textured papers.
1923- Aphorism
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/schwitters-britain/
http://www.schwitters-kurt.com/
