This week I continued work on my project; I wanted to focus on the theme of “wasted life” and what I wanted to convey through it/ what it meant to me. Food in art has always been central to my practice- whether that was through photography, poetic imagery, or sculptures. Food to me is a vehicle for expression of emotion and life experiences. It’s colour if bright, can present ideas of childhood nostalgia or the bittersweet feelings or growth and aging, if it’s colour is dark, feelings of anger, grief, fear, or past resentments. The food I choose to depict also bears various meanings and symbolism, for example desserts tend to be closely linked to ageing and anger for me, whereas savoury dinner foods are more reminiscent of grief and loss, and snack foods represent anxiety and fear. I can’t explain this as well to others as the feelings I portray and the feelings I gain from my work are more instinctive and less conscious or reasoned. This was important in the process of thinking and reflecting on my concept. Wasted Life and it’s connection to food is something very abstract and personal to me. I try to reason with it and fail.
In every tutorial I’m asked the same thing: what am I trying to convey with this concept? what do I want my audience to walk away with? the truth is I want them to interpret it for themselves and walk away with meanings unique to them. I want them to feel challenged, uncomfortable, confused, comforted, and more. I can’t define a specific feeling or thought but I also don’t want to do that. To me the rotted food I portray in this project is a placeholder for the image of chances not taken and experiences not lived for a number of reasons. The loaded table is what we begin life with and, in this case, the hardly touched food is what we leave it with- wasted. The montage playing in the back, of a life flashing before our eyes, only furthers the image of death- as does the eerie and disjointed sound which will accompany the piece. All in all, I have decided to convey what the concept means to me personally and what I translate it as, however, what my audience takes away is up to them to decide. I’ve never enjoyed defining that for them and feel it goes against the whole point of my work- I just want everyone to have a unique experience and thats the point.
Beyond that, I’ve continued to work on my foundational structure. This week I went to the woodworking studio in the school of arts to cut down some wooden pieces for the furniture I’ll be creating. I also purchased some wood varnish as stain would not have created the glossy effect I envisioned for the wood. This all went fine, I haven’t used the wood varnish yet but my pieces of wood were cut to size and are ready to be pieced together in a few weeks, in the next few days/week I’ll varnish the wood and wallpaper it. Other than that, my synthesizer should be arriving soon so that I can begin playing with creating sound and my experimentations with clay should begin in a few weeks too.
