My new project is, of course, not new. It continues a line of work that I’d previously investigated – Prelude and High Tea for the Birthday Boy, which were based on Freud’s ‘Narcisissm of Small Things’, where small communities share commonalities and are, therefore, likely to engage in petty feuds because of their hypersensitivity to the minor differences perceived in each other.1 I experienced this kind of behaviour in my own family, which as a child I found upsetting.
Prelude, 2018. Although each figure is a personality in its own right, the simplicity and blandness of these cardboard silhouettes allow viewers a personal relationship with the works. Photo Shirley A
In creating these works, my focus was on handling the materials as freely and quickly as a child would, with their imagination racing ahead of the making. While this was the case with the cardboard, I found making the papier-mache tea party onerous, and this was reflected in the finished piece, which came across as turgid as the PVA that held it all together. In fact, the only feature of High Tea that I was pleased with was the handheld-shot film of a real birthday party that was projected onto it.
The cardboard allowed me to work quickly and simply, and this light way of working was reflected in hanging silhouettes that moved gently in a breeze, from draughts or people walking among them. I want to continue this lightness into the major project.
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, (London: Hogarth Press, Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1963), p. 315
High Tea for the Birthday Boy recreates a family tea party seen through the eyes of a child at the point when the polite behaviour of the participants descends into chaos. The naive style reflects the mind of a child trying to process an upsetting situation. Photo Shirley A