Brick Revelation

Last Monday (24^th Jan 2011) I was driving home from university on the M62, as I was overtaking a lorry I noticed the web address on it; ‘reclaimedbricks.com’ and for some reason, something twigged in my head which gave me inspiration for my next practical idea.

I started to think about links with using bricks within my work, such as;

Rachel Whiteread's House, 1993 - 1994

Whiteread’s House had the characteristics of a house from the exterior but was much heavier in weight compared to a normal house. It questions the way we think about objects, how we see them and how to see them from a different point of view. 

The demolition of House, 1994

House was demolished on the 11^th January 1994 in thirty minutes by order of Bow Council, despite campaigning on Whiteread’s behalf. It now only exists as photographs, drawings and fragments that Whiteread collected from the ruins and memories to all of those who saw it.

‘By the day of demolition, it was covered in graffiti and beginning to look pretty sad; birds were living in it. It took three and a half years to develop, four months to make, and thirty minutes to demolish’ – Rachel Whiteread

It is this concept that gave me some inspiration whilst driving, I began thinking about creating a sculpture which I could create from junk/scrap, photograph it then demolish it, in order to re-build something new from the rubble.

I then thought of artists who use assemblage art, artist’s who I’ve previously researched (see blog post Thursday 20^th January 2011 ‘Recent Developments & Research’).

When I got home I began researching into specific pieces by these artists such as;

Andy Goldsworthy’s Bricks and River mud, 1987

Anthony Cragg’s (aka Tony Cragg) Mittelschicht, 1984

Richard Long’s A Line In Japan, 1979

Over the last week Andy & I have been collecting unwanted bricks from various scrap heaps, car parks and through general rubble piles for some sculpture ideas I've had. Today was the beginning of clearing my studio space, laying down some plastic and beginning to build some sculptures using the bricks. 

I began by creating a brick spiral based on Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, I then demolished this sculpture and created a brick sculpture from one of my sketches. Later on in the afternoon I went on to brainstorm other brick sculture ideas for the remainder of this week.