Simple Materials example essay topic

Rosalie Gascoigne b. 1943d. 1999 Assemblage Sculptor Born in New Zealand moved to Australia. Sculpture in the 80's and 90's. Learnt Ikebana Japanese flower arranging, where form and awareness of nature is most important. Tried to find unusual support for the flowers and found the supports more interesting than the arrangements.

Lives with her assemblages, gradually observing and changing them until she feels they are right. Inspiration from Monaro Tablelands and stony slopes of Mt Strom lo (Canberra). In her works the relationship between natural and man-made worlds is a matter of perception landscape perceived as natural are often man-made. Combines objects so that the original purpose and meaning of them is no longer obvious and they are now seen as something else.

"My pieces can be looked at in different ways. I try to provide a starting point from which the people can let their imagination wander - what they discover will be a product of their own experience as much as mine."My aim is to be both allusive (more than one meaning) and elusive" (difficult to find) Built to evoke emotional response to the viewer. Materials are placed in unexpected juxtapositions and the viewer is inclined to make associations that are removed form the former significance of the materials. Her simple designs evoke a sense of place through the associations, which these materials have with the context from which they have been collected.

Assembles abstract patterns and grids from natural and manufactured materials found in her surroundings. She responds to colour and texture. Techniques / Materials Discarded things found in the Canberra countryside. Roofing nails, broken telephone line insulators, dried weeds, tin, rope, wire, feathers, enamel jugs, corrugated iron, soft drink crates, lino, Masonite, road signs and sticks. Industrial de bri. Simple materials.

Examples / Works Roadside Constructed from old soft drink crates and aluminum strips. The wood used and its final appearance suggests somewhat of its' history. Materials transformed by the gentle tough of air, wind and water. Sawed soft drink crate into 239 small strips. These strips then reassembled and this repetition of nearly identical units is said the reference the 'reoccurring rhythms of nature'. Also represents the 'abstract essence of thin, stripy grass'.

It's a personal response to place; our attention is drawn to a private view of the country. The repetitive nature of individual elements evokes the idea of boundless, limitless space, an attribute of tern given to the desert but also true of the Canberra landscape. Cow Pasture Linoleum, paint, corrugated iron, composition board and steel screws to create an image of nature. Linoleum - found "looked like cow pasture- cow parsley and things. A bit of manure there too.

If you go through cow paddocks watching where you tread, and there's a lot of flowers around, that's exactly what I see there" The materials, patterns and colours are in harmony. The corrugated iron strips evokes the colours and ridges of the earth while the linoleum portrays the lush paddock in bloom.