Sometimes you don’t know, what you don’t know. In 2023, I studied at the Byron School of Art (BSA), located in a historic and bohemian town, Mullumbimby. It was there that I really got to see what I didn’t know about a contemporary art practice.
It was an exciting and intense 6 months at BSA and I worked alot. We considered ‘what is a drawing’ and ‘what is painting’, and the space in-between, assemblage, sculpture, video art and more.
One of the projects in Semester 1 was to do a work on paper. Like almost everyone else I had no idea what to do at first, so I began experimenting with different types of paper and considering how I could give it form. One day in class I began twisting large pieces of paper to make into plaits (yes like rapunzel) and from there my ideas started to flow.
As I drove home from school I had a feeling that the plaits were like lines of subconscious communication, where there are no words but they carry what is to be communicated through other signs and perceptions.
An unknown, unspoken script
As the work started to evolve, other elements and symbols were introduced. I started painting hundreds of symbols on 10 metre lengths of recycled paper before making the extra large plaits. I made 9 plaits in total which is about 2.7km of my unknown script painted on paper!
At the end of the term I presented this work at school. All went well but I wasn’t satisfied that I had really reached the end of this creative expression. An inner sense was telling me there was something more.
So the week after the semester finished, I went out into the forest to further develop the work. As I drove out there at sunrise with a dear friend who agreed to help me, I didn’t know what I would do other than ‘hang it somewhere’. I found a location that intuitively felt right and proceeded to attach fishing line to the paper plaits and throw the line over a tree branch to pull them up, until they started to come to life.
I took some photos but still felt it wasn’t complete and decided to suspend them over a small gully of water nearby. This location was more challenging to hang them as we had to balance a large branch over the gully on an angle supported by the surrounding rocks.
After taking a few more photos, I then dropped them all into the water below and watched as they moved about creating their own shapes, surrounded by the reflections of the sky and the trees in the water. It was enchanting and I would not of guessed that this is where the work would eventually go to. I simply kept following my inner voice until this expression was finally complete.
In the end the paper plaits started to disintegrate and both my friend and I ended up in the freezing cold water to take it all out and I carried some heavy bags of waterlogged paper back through the forest and into the car.
What do we know, through sensations felt but not heard.
What do we know, through signs seen but not read.
What I understood then, is not what I know now.
Title : Unspoken, 2023
Recycled paper, string, acrylic ink
Location : The forest, Upper Main Arm, NSW
