Project Proposal
Gaston Bachelard says in The Poetics of Space “The poetic image is a sudden salience on the surface of the psyche”
During the first term, I completed my first independent project called the white shirt project where I started to experiment with space. So I started to play around with wallpaper attempting to create a room out of a white shirt to test space. The process of covering the shirts interior with wallpaper made me better understand spaces of objects in an architectural and design perspective which I truly enjoyed.
For my self initiated project, I have decided to develop this idea by proceeding with the same path and explore spaces of ordinary objects and transfer them to interior spaces by covering the interiors of the object with wallpaper to experiment and test spaces of ordinary object. I started experimenting with wallpaper, because wallpaper indicated spaces of walls and rooms as well as it adds life and colour to the room. I started by cutting strips and pieces of wallpaper and placing it to cover the interior of ordinary objects found at home as well as objects that are classified as “non-space” objects that are not given such significance such as cups, bins and stockpots. I then realised the wallpaper I had did not have enough colour and did not serve the purpose of wallpaper, so I expanded on my project and started to create different patterns on the wallpaper to give it more colour. Then I covered the interior of a cup using the wallpaper I created to make it look like an interior space.
During the process of ornamenting the wallpaper I created many different prints and designs using lines and geometrical shapes which reminded me of Sean Scully’s work. After further researching into Scully’s work I was inspired to create a wall of wallpapers using the designs I created using geometrical shapes and lines.
I will be researching the concept of non-places within my project. Poetics of space by Gaston Bachelard a book that looks over the way we experience space will be the starting point for my research.
Planning
First, I had a search around the house for ordinary objects that we used daily questioning how I could play around with the spaces of the objects and turning them into interior spaces. As a start for my project, I used a bin, mug, colander and a cooking pot.
My initial plan was to use wallpaper to cover the interior of the objects, however to due to COVID-19 I am unable to get access to wallpaper to use for my project. I decided to experiment on materials I have at home to create a wallpaper feel to the interiors of the objects.
I sketched the mug and the bin and highlighted the spaces that would be covered with the wallpaper
Experiment #1
For my first experiment I decided to use kitchen paper towel rolls to use instead of the wallpaper. First, I filled a plastic bowl with water. Secondly, I cut the paper rolls into long strips. Then I dunked the paper rolls into the water to make it damp for it to be able to stand and stick to the objects. Finally, I gently placed the paper towels to cover the whole interior of the objects. I repeated the last step until the layer of the paper towel was visible. Finally the paper towels dried and become more visible.
Experiment #1 Reflection
After I finished my experiment, I realised the mug I used was not an ordinary mug but a art piece itself, also using paper towels as wallpaper may have had the texture of wallpaper but its lack of ornamentation did not give it an overall wallpaper feel.
Object sketches
I drew fast sketches of ordinary objects I found around the house to help my ideas come together and think of ways of how experiment the spaces of these objects.
Negative space
while sketching some of the ordinary objects. I saw a strong indication in negative and positive space. I decided to redraw these objects highlighting the negative space.
Experiment #2
Experimenting spaces of objects using wallpaper
Experiment #3
Steps
Reflection
Experiment #4
After reflecting on experiment #2 I realised that the wallpaper I am using is very neutral and does not give the feeling of wallpaper. so I decided to add colour and design to the wallpaper to better fulfil the function of the wallpaper I used markers and sticked to a colour scheme of pink and orange.
Cross walk
Polkadots
Rain drops
Parallel lines
Quad
Stripes
Draughts
Bubbles
Checkers
Experiment #5
Cubes
Chess
Freckles
Sunset
Clown
hoops
rings
Sunrays
Grid
Steps
1. I place the circular piece of wallpaper to the bottom base of the cup
2. I wrap the inside of the cup with the designed wallpaper strip side facing outwards
3. I use sticky tack to stick the wallpaper strip to make it fit perfectly
Reflection
My work reminds me of Sean Scully's work. the lines, stripes and squares of colour relates to the patterns I use on the wallpaper.
Sean Scully
2017
Oil, acrylic and oil pastel on aluminum
118 x 225 in. (299.7 x 571.5 cm.)
SS2978
2017-2018