'Venus' 2005

An outdoor installation placed in The Begelly Park Gardens, West Wales: a cycladic form of “woman” suspended upside down from a tree above a lake. A felted dreadlock creates a loop connecting Venus with lake, land and tree; one end disappears into the water and links with little seeds on the land. The opposite end loops around the branch of a tree and disappears into man-made bird’s nest. During the three months birds used my wool to create their own nests in the tree.

A Life journey, the fertility of woman and land lead towards a question of whether we are participants or creators on the planet Earth? Venus is communicating the connections the fertility of woman and nature in a continuous cycle. I made use of a “man-made”, modelled Cycladic form, and harnessed natural elements such as the lake and tree as part of my work. In combining these aspects I am asking myself, what lies between nature and artifice? One side of Venus portrays a hand-modelled pregnant belly, the other side is a huge organic fissure created accidentally during the firing process. I combined three material elements within the work: the Venus form constructed from supplied clay, the seeds from the park garden and the unprocessed wool; using purely environmental factors - the landscape, land, lake and tree, created the ‘Venus’ installation.        view sideshow