Lecture Notes:
Fine Art professor at the University of Newcastle
- Likes to recycle and reuse materials in sculpture.
Interested in landscape and the way people interact with the land.
Likes to make connections across the land; Northumberland Dales - Korean Burial Mounds (similar in shapes and structure)
- Also interested in grand buildings
- Inspired by general life in Delhi, finds sculpture in stacks of hay piled on trailers, clays mounds used to protect fuel (wood)
- Inspired by the informality of architecture in Delhi
- Intrigued with brick manufacturing in India, Delhi
- Using a small wooden mould and packing it with clay.
Explored different methods of brick making, chimney, stacked.
Interested in how bricks correspond to human scale.
Appeal in the natural way bricks crack and discolour.
- Bricks are recycled lots in India, some still have paint on them form previous structure e.g. Blue bricks represent Brahman houses.
- Worked with Delhi based brick masons - excellent craftsmanship - to build commission vessel.
- India - vivid, vibrant but untouchable - found bees nest - reflected in this theme.
- Found chilis in spice market which reflected this as well.
- Worked with bamboo to build structure. Hung nest of red chilis from bamboo structure.
Looked at how bricks are made in Holland - agricultural.
- Made brick tyre inspired by bust of Sheba.
- Made reconstructions of grand buildings, interesting juxtaposition of grand building made of cheap materials. contradiction.
- Constructed a miniature Adrians wall.
- Graffiti artists worked on it.
- Knocked down at the end of the exhibition.
Also uses life size bricks to make sculpture. Korea knocking down old brick buildings. Wanted to stay looking at a narrative with the bricks. Built circular structure.
Made structure in Canada.
Used vibrant graffiti bricks to build a buttress against an institutional building - interesting concept of the graffiti supporting the institution.
Went back to India - Interested in the use of cow dung to make these small pancake pieces.
- Built monuments out of pats.
- Brought in different materials to see how they would use it and react - used mirrors and had burst of creativity with patterns and designs pressed into them.
- Found it hard to get structures into museum because of the material used an the social status of the women who built them.
China:
Most of Chinas old architecture had been knocked down. Used rubble to build new miniature cities out of it. Lots of empty waste land across China made miniature copies of these abandoned structure out of bamboo.
Commissioned piece for airspace gallery - mini structures on stone surrounded by vibrant purple budlias changed into a dark brown over time but didn't shrink.
Questions:
Was the prejudice encountered by the women who worked on the dung structure part of the artwork.
- Was about their structures gaining recognition for their work.
Was he (Andrew Burton) allowed to touch and work with the dung because he was a man?
- He was. Normally men wouldn't work with dung because it was the lowest of materials.
- May have seemed weird to the women because of traditional values.
Did displaying the structures open up the viewers and different audiences?
- Yes, lots of tourists and higher class visit the museum.
- Interesting how structures are made all across India but they all vary in style.
- Still stigma between museum curator and women who made them - still different class divides.
- People still aware of this heritage however with the disappearance of traditional methods with the new modern materials and techniques people more interested in their heritage.
Did you speak to the women about the meanings of the designs and patterns?
Yes, they immediately took to using the mirrors I brought with me. No worry or self- conscience about using new materials. It was their creative outlet, the women wouldn't do art without these structures - this was the material and medium of their choice.
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