26.1.10

Ann Barrett

I have an interdisciplinary approach to art and design by working between both fields, using relevant materials suitable to each idea. I have used a range of processes from basic cutting and sticking for an installation piece to more advanced processes such as casting, metalwork and video. In past work I have incorporated scenes from everyday life and everyday objects such as wallpaper, cigarette stumps, ash, tobacco, fruit peel and berries.

My work has a central theme of drawing attention to everyday situations and objects, bringing the humble/lost/forgotten/un-monumental to the foreground with aims to imbue objects and situations with meaning or value, or to change the usual perceptions of objects/scenes. The everyday will mean something different to each person but the everyday I explore has links to memories, home and the city.

My final major project will be based on the ‘un-monumental’ everyday experience. This may be explored through one of these trajectories - city streets, nature (for example un-loved growths such as mould and weeds) and childhood experiences of the everyday (for example juxtapositions of the real and imaginary and novel uses of everyday objects). Children are artists in a way, with a rich imagination, they respond to everyday situations and can see the creative potential of everyday objects such as making a cardboard box into space station for example, yet they do not have the same capabilities or facilities to bring their imagination to life in the way adults can. For example adults are able bring to life fictional stories for children through TV programmes such as ‘The Borrowers’ through set design and also by creating books, animations, illustrations, graphics and sculpture. The designer Lucy Merchant has based her chair designs on child like drawings. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen create large scale sculptures of everyday objects that appeal to the imagination. I am interested in the juxtapositions between real life and the imaginary.

Some of my work is similar to Mohammed Aslam and Kerry Murray as I have used casting to change perceptions of an object.

Relevant artists:-

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen - http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com/
Lucy Merchant - http://www.lucymerchant.com/
Susan Lenart Kazmer - http://www.susanlenartkazmer.net/