Unit 2: documentation
Initial ideas :
Using my art to visually represent my reality // communicating whats otherwise invisible // showing the ways anxiety interrupts life and creates gaps in experience // fractured sense of self // gaps in experience or missed moments // physically present but emotionally distant
Using my art to visually represent my reality // communicating whats otherwise invisible // showing the ways anxiety interrupts life and creates gaps in experience // fractured sense of self // gaps in experience or missed moments // physically present but emotionally distant
The personal is universal
~*More organic shapes
~*Layering images
~*Different materiality -
~*We are breakabale / fragmented thing -like clay
~*fragmented identity
~*Emma Hart/ / Phoebe Cummings
- Magaret Iverson : Photography trace & trauma
~*Layering images
~*Different materiality -
~*We are breakabale / fragmented thing -like clay
~*fragmented identity
~*Emma Hart/ / Phoebe Cummings
- Magaret Iverson : Photography trace & trauma
Using clay to build a tactile and vulnerable visual language
prints for clay tiles / clay frames
Photographic Ceramic Pieces
This was my first time working with ceramic decals, and I chose four film photographs that, in different ways, reflect a sense of isolation from identity. Each image feels like a kind of monument, quiet and still. One of the pieces is a collage where I’ve cut myself out and replaced the space with the sea — suggesting a feeling of absence, or of dissolving into something larger and unknown. It’s about not fully recognising yourself, or feeling like parts of you are missing.
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‘The Body Remembers What the Mind Tries to Forget’
After reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, I realised how trauma and stress can live in the body even when we’re not fully aware of it. The hand-impressed clay tiles come from moments where I’ve felt anxious or overwhelmed. Pressing my hands into the clay felt like a way of recording those feelings, almost like the clay is remembering something my mind couldn’t quite put into words.
I’ve always been interested in how materials can hold emotion. Clay responds straight away to touch. It’s soft and malluble at first, then hardens over time and becomes permenant. Almost like the way the body starts to learn patterns and tensions.
After reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, I realised how trauma and stress can live in the body even when we’re not fully aware of it. The hand-impressed clay tiles come from moments where I’ve felt anxious or overwhelmed. Pressing my hands into the clay felt like a way of recording those feelings, almost like the clay is remembering something my mind couldn’t quite put into words.
I’ve always been interested in how materials can hold emotion. Clay responds straight away to touch. It’s soft and malluble at first, then hardens over time and becomes permenant. Almost like the way the body starts to learn patterns and tensions.
Ceramic Experiments – Texture and Fragmentation
leaving a trace /imprint / momument / commemoration
I’m experimenting with photographing clay imprinted with my own handprints and layering photos onto the images. To begin to explore the idea of using clay in this context, I tested out some work by creating some clay tiles. Some with the intention to print photographs on, and others to test out using hand prints as a way of representing some of the physical feelings that come with having an ADHD diagnosis, the frustration of not understanding, or feeling like you need to get out of a situation. It is important to me that the project is not too literal, but these initial tests are me figuring out the best way to interlink my clay and photography whilst trying visually represent my experience.
I started thinking about why the early ceramic tiles didn’t sit quite right with me. They were neat, square, kind of polite. But ADHD and mental illness aren’t neat. They don’t present in perfect little grids. They’re unpredictable, overwhelming, fragmented. I realised that if I’m trying to reflect that part of myself in the work, then the materials and forms should be allowed to be a bit more chaotic too.
That’s when I started experimenting with texture. I crumpled up paper and pressed it into the clay, used bubble wrap to create this repetitive but broken pattern. The crumples felt like a good metaphor for how memory or identity can feel distorted and the bubble wrap reminded me of overstimulation and repetition. Like getting stuck in a loop mentally, or how sensory overload can feel. This is a sort of continuation of the hand imprint tiles, but a bit less literal and more abstract/ conceptual version.
I’m still figuring it out, but I plan to create some form of collage on these tile. This stage is about letting things be messy, letting the clay hold traces of those internal textures instead of forcing it into something too resolved. I think that’s closer to the truth of what i’m trying to explore.
The Process - using a rolling pin and different materials to imprint the clay
Printing Decals to transfer onto ceramic pieces
thinking about display
Potential display ideas Poster Design
A to B Gallery Display Plan
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Transferring decals and glaze : THE PROCESS
- Process notes / moving from rigid to freeform
- Earlier tiles felt too uniform, so I started moulding the clay freely by hand. No plan, just instinct~ felt grounding and cathartic.
- More broken, ADHD isnt neat or liner, sense of self is distorted
represent this by folding the clay, ripping and cutting decals, putting grit under the decal to create air bubbles and burn through
- The irregular, fragmented shapes mirror internal feeling ~ pulled apart, uncertain, trying to hold things together // past and present self?
- What do the photographs represent? what themes do they portray? Fragmented identity, memory loss, quietness, the home, familiarity
- Overlaying photographs onto these surfaces brings memory and presence into the work~ lives somewhere between sculpture and image, stability and fracture.
Some of these ceramic pieces turned out really well, especially the more intuitively shaped ones and the collage tile. I’m less sure about the hand-textured piece with the small cut-outs scattered across it. The idea was to reflect a sense of chaos using everyday objects, but it just feels a bit random and not very intentional. It doesn’t really sit right with the rest of the work, so I’ve decided not to use it in the final piece, but it was a good test to see how I could layer decal images onto a textured surface.
The collage tile reflects the theme of fragmentation through how the image is cut up and pieced together. It feels like a visual metaphor for trying to make sense of scattered thoughts or memories. I also like the contrast between the fragile, flimsy decal and the solid ceramic underneath. That tension mirrors how something can feel emotionally delicate even when it’s physically grounded.
The collage tile reflects the theme of fragmentation through how the image is cut up and pieced together. It feels like a visual metaphor for trying to make sense of scattered thoughts or memories. I also like the contrast between the fragile, flimsy decal and the solid ceramic underneath. That tension mirrors how something can feel emotionally delicate even when it’s physically grounded.
The process of creating a sense of fragmentation in my pieces
Making the shevles for display
A to B Gallery Display
This was the initial display of the works, but something about it felt a bit too “ “ . The nature of this work is that it’s about being freeform, natural and messy. I wanted to use the negative space a bit more and not just look as if I’m almost trying to sell the pieces. So I decided to rearragne it in more of a random way, leaving more gaps and spreading the work across the space better
︎FINAL WORKS︎
Title: Set in Stone
Set in Stone is a body of ceramic works that explore the tension between permanence and change. Each piece holds fragments of photographic imagery that have been stretched, cut, burnt or broken into the clay. The moments they capture feel both rooted and on the verge of slipping away. Each piece documents my feelings of loosing my sense of self and my fractured sense of identity since being diagnosed with ADHD.
Working with clay, a material known for its durability, felt like a way to pin things down. But the process quickly became more about accepting distortion and fragility. The cracks, warps and uneven surfaces reflect how memory can feel unreliable and how emotions and ADHD often resist being neatly contained.
Making these pieces became a catharsis, allowing me to sit with uncomfortable feelings and make something physical from them. There’s a constant push and pull between trying to hold on and learning to let go, and I think that comes through in the work. It’s about trying to make sense of yourself when everything feels like it’s always shifting.
Title: Set in Stone
Set in Stone is a body of ceramic works that explore the tension between permanence and change. Each piece holds fragments of photographic imagery that have been stretched, cut, burnt or broken into the clay. The moments they capture feel both rooted and on the verge of slipping away. Each piece documents my feelings of loosing my sense of self and my fractured sense of identity since being diagnosed with ADHD.
Working with clay, a material known for its durability, felt like a way to pin things down. But the process quickly became more about accepting distortion and fragility. The cracks, warps and uneven surfaces reflect how memory can feel unreliable and how emotions and ADHD often resist being neatly contained.
Making these pieces became a catharsis, allowing me to sit with uncomfortable feelings and make something physical from them. There’s a constant push and pull between trying to hold on and learning to let go, and I think that comes through in the work. It’s about trying to make sense of yourself when everything feels like it’s always shifting.
