Flutter

Life is fragile and sometimes we forget how fragile we are. Like a flower, we bloom and after some time we become frail. Life is like a piece of glass, beautiful, yet in a moment can be shattered. It is too short to fritter away. My sculpture is inspired by the fragility and beauty of life. The tranquility in sunlight is accompanied by shadows – and the shadow is full of complexity and contradiction. Light is always followed by a shadow, like pleasure and pain go together, and life and death. The sculpture is ‘incomplete’ to symbolize the gaps and failures that bring both pain and a sense of our own humanity. It is deemed that we need to be ‘complete’ to fly - like a kite which cannot fly if it has an opening. Yet it is these gaps that allow light through and only when we embrace them do we become open to the divine graces that inform our thoughts and actions which help us to accept our human condition.

If we never let ourselves go we'd never understand how courageous we could be. If we never take off how would we ever know how far we could fly? My dreams have on occasion taken me to the air and I prize being able to fly effortlessly and feel a lightness of being. The feeling of being able to lift off and move through the air takes great energy, confidence and courage and my sculpture is perhaps a reflection of this quiet energy.

I started my project looking at Japanese kites and lanterns. I was inspired by the lightness and simplicity of them. I’ve used tissue paper because it was the best paper I found that is translucent and lets light through beautifully. The skeleton is built using balsa, bass wood and glue, chosen for their lightness and delicacy. The structure transformed into geometrical shapes which later progressed into planes and layers. The draped tissue paper on these planes created interesting shapes giving the cloth more drama and movement. I was inspired by Cubism and wanted to be less literal and believe I have achieved movement particularly in the arm and the overlapping faces.

Perhaps this sculpture is too fragile to last for long, but that in itself is a statement. To live in this world we must learn to love all things we do with all our heart. We also need to learn that when the time comes to let go, we let it go...