Linear Planar Abstraction: Irritation

Final Composition:

 

Statement:

The emotion assigned to me was ‘Irritation’, and through the manipulation of lines using armature wire and planes using fabric, this project abstracts this emotion in two different forms – a symmetrical and an asymmetrical sculpture. To express this emotion to the viewer, I have extracted inspiration from my own experiences with irritation – how my body reacts to it, what I feel, how I behave when experiencing it, what triggers it, how do people around me respond to it etc. So, my sculptures aim to express the hostility associated with this emotion through their thorny and spiky form. Both pieces depict a central sphere of irritation, to reflect the core of the emotion that is full of energy just waiting to burst, almost like a bomb. Then through different elements, like the twirly and spiked lines in the symmetrical sculpture, and the outer layer of the wound wire which has random dents and curved lines in the asymmetrical one, I aim to depict how unpredictable the emotion is, how an outburst can be easily triggered, and how people have to maintain a safe distance from me when I am irritated. To further emphasise how volatile this emotion is, I have given a sort of spirally and bouncy movement to the sculptures that seem to vibrate when even gently touched, thus inviting the viewer in to examine the emotion personally and making the piece interactive. The symmetrical sculpture draws inspiration from the snapper plant to show how the emotion can bite into any stimulus, and asymmetrical sculpture is made from a single piece of wire with no joints so as to show how easily the emotion can wind itself around anything. The planes created by the fabric on the sculptures enhance these implications, like in the asymmetrical one, bits and pieces of fabric almost resemble shards exploding from the core, or the bomb, at the viewer thus making it more seem more aggressive and volatile. In the case of the symmetrical sculpture the planes give a base to the twirly spikes thus drawing the viewer’s eye to it. I aimed to give the symmetrical sculpture radial symmetry so every side remains the same as you spin the piece around, thus emphasising the spherical core of the emotion. For the asymmetrical one, as you spin the piece around, you see a whole new face to the sculpture as the lines and planes interact at different angles.

 

Sketchbook pages:

 

Individual Photographs: