The arrival of Louise Bourgeois’ exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, coincided with the first weeks on my MA course. I had been looking forward to visiting her show, being a huge fan. A few days before, I had been looking at my collection of ‘finds’ (all sorts of natural phenomena) for inspiration. A dried up fish swim bladder and a sponge-like form found on the beach grabbed me as starting points. I want to investigate similar forms in nature, sometimes micro in scale – their form and function. I’m also interested in drawing more – whatever shape that takes – 3-d and 2-d.
Bourgeois’ work struck a chord. Of course I love her Maman Spider, crouched eerily, over-powering the first barn. I was hoping for more sculpture, but strangely it was her etched drawings of plant forms, bodily parts and egg clusters that fascinated me most. Largescale and awkwardly drawn, they have real emotion, enhanced by repetition.
Her forms resonated with my ‘finds’. I have since looked up my sponge-like object on the internet. It seems to be whelk egg sacs! Serendipity, though not so surprising that I was drawn to Bourgeois’ seductive egg sacs. So I have been drawing the sacs with a view to creating 3-d pieces (drawings?) with wire, paper pulp, fibres and other mixed media based on them. Relic of little lives, now entered into the greater cycle.
