outside inside
galeria cascarilla, cuba, 2008
In 2008 I was invited to create an artwork for a gallery in Havana, Cuba. This was a space I could only interpret and see through photographs and architectural plans. The artwork was made by artists in Cuba from a drawing I created. Their work was also included in the show titled 'Natilla'.
I chose a wall with three windows which presented an opportunity to invent with notions of interior and exterior space and makes play with the conventions of a picture window view of the world as traditionally expressed in painting. Here, the pictures are the views through the windows, the pictorial elements painted onto the walls of the interior and the interaction between them.
We are familiar with shadows and shafts of light and both impart depth and enable different ways of seeing a space, the pictorial in this piece serving to transform the flat wall, allowing it to be both a physical boundary between the external and internal and a means to project into space. It is my intention that this interplay between the real world we exist within and the world we can invent as a result of our experience become one and complement each other to the enhancement of both, inspiring questions about perception in the process.
(See also Interactive Wall Installation 2008; Identity 2009; Intangible Spaces 2010.)
Installation
The artwork was created from a scale drawing. Proportions were derived from the room and window measurements provided by the gallery.
I wished to play with notions of light, dark and shadow. The artwork is to be viewed in changing light conditions. By day the black elements are suggestive of cast shadows yet take on a different reading at night.
The artwork is painted in black and brilliant white creating a dynamic tonal contrast with the white of the wall and natural light.
A team of Cuban artists made the artwork and also exhibited their own work in the exhibition titled Natilla.
