angellspace

Dr Helen Angell-Preece | Artist-academic | Auto-geography: Critical Spatial Practices: Sculptural Installation, Critical Writing, Curating Dialogue

Step-up 2007

Step Up

proprioceptive adj. relating to stimuli produced and perceived within an organism.  esp. relating to the position and movement of the body.
[Latin proprius ‘own’ + RECEPTIVE]

Kinaesthesia (“the feeling of movement in all skeletal and muscular structures” ) is the first of 3 methods of proprioceptive signal generated and received by the body to give us our sense of self-awareness, of ‘being’.

As we look downwards into the viewing box of Step-Up, we experience abstracted images of body movement – shifting weight, balance, stepping, lifting and placing of feet. This hypnotic and rhythmic formation gradually induces a sympathetic reaction in our own limbs, the sensations of kinaesthesia.

Yet the movements we see performed within a formalised stage-like space are not clear and continuous, but are cut, shortened, repeated and distorted by reflection, becoming more akin to our own inconstant and fragmented awareness of body movement and of self, throughout the day.

In Step-Up we see a continuation of the artist’s on-going fascination with, and research into proprioceptive triggers. Her trademark manipulation of spatial organisation and integral movement is apparent, to create a fleeting sense of ‘being here’ now within the viewer.

 

 

Step-Up (Installation views) 2007

DVD (3 sequences 5min looped), plywood, paint, acrylic sheet. 50 x 65 x 70cm

Impression – a small space for you 2007

Impression - a small space for you

Delineated rectangular walls, the warmth of diffused light filtered through fragile, skin-like paper textures create an inviting space for the viewer to enter. Reminiscent of Japanese paper shoji screens, these walls however, are punctured and impressed with anamorphic body shapes.

Printed lines of paper clothing patterns hint at the intended body presence and shape.

In this installation, the artist explores the ways in which we inhabit spaces, making them our own, leaving our ‘impression’ and delineated markings on our surroundings, whether they be real or imagined, in our wake.

‘Impression’ can be said to be a structure of ‘being here’. An articulation perhaps of how it feels to ‘be’ in the world - sometimes a fleeting impression - momentary, fragile, passing and diffused.

The artist’s intention is to imbue the viewer with a sense of body awareness, rhythm, movement, ‘being here’.

 

 

Impression - a small space for you

Tracing, pattern & greaseproof papers, bias binding, acrylic paint, steel wire, bulldog clips. 

2.5 x 2 x 3m