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  • Garage Editions Print

de Cordova, Denise, 2015, Residency, Garage Editions Print

Abstract or Description:

The Garage Editions Print Residency at Worcester University provided an opportunity to produce a large wood cut print based on the pantin (dancing or jumping jack) paper puppets popular in 18th Century France. Often elaborately costumed, their purpose was to entertain adults rather than children. The project is part of an on going collaboration with Dr James Fisher, developing a ‘character’ based on Isabella Bird, a 19th century explorer, writer and naturalist who travelled extensively in Colorado and the Rockies, and continues the work produced for LAF Projects in 2015. Ideas of body and proportion that are other than those associated with a European / Classical model are central to the realisation of the figure. Dolls, cartoons, and votive objects provide a more appropriate framework. That Isabella Bird has a manga personification already in existence adds to this. The creation of an animated work is a new departure for De Cordova, whose sculptures more typically focus on the idea of the ‘stilled’ object. The woodcut process was chosen for its affinity with carving, an approach to making that is a part of the artist’s fabrication history in terms of her sculpture. The print exists in several forms, including a pre cut sheet, and as a cut out, fully jointed work that has variable poses that have the potential to shape the narratives implied by the placing or arranging of the moving body parts. The work has been exhibited in its uncut sheet form at Grand Magasin Deux at French Riviera, London in December 2015. It is anticipated that the print will be shown in different venues in the future, as a large-scale wall based instillation.

Subjects: Creative Arts and Design > W100 Fine Art
Creative Arts and Design > W100 Fine Art > W130 Sculpture
School or Centre: School of Arts & Humanities
Funders: University of Worcester
Date Deposited: 13 Dec 2016 22:38
Last Modified: 12 Jul 2023 12:08
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/2279
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