Saturday, 12 November 2016

Artist's in Residence Open House

At our university two artist's have come over for a 3 month residency. They are interested in different aspects of the Red Sea research carried out here. The following information is taken from Artist's in Labs, who organize residencies for artist's at scientific institutions across the world:

Marie Grismar is an artist from Lausanne, Switzerland. In her artistic practice she focuses on water and the underwater world: the complexity and poetry of water is a major inspiration for her work. Marie has been diving since the age of nine and is a devoted observer of the marine life since then. Thanks to her diving skills she has come to understand water as a new space of creation.
Her project at KAUST will investigate the aesthetics of underwater ecological constructions in the Red Sea. She will be part of the research group of the Reef Genomics Lab at the Red Sea Research Center.

Sandra Kühne is an artist living and working in Zurich, Switzerland. She is inspired by novels, sentences and charts which describe relations and interdependence between body, space and interruption of action. In her drawings, cut outs and installations, which are mainly made from paper, Sandra leads two-dimensionality into three-dimensionality; she describes her artistic practice as a way of doing cartography. Focusing on the Red Sea coral reefs during her artists-in-lab residency at the Integrated Ocean Processes Research Group at the Red Sea Research Center, she will look for ways to show themes of interaction, balance and symbiosis through her art.

It was very interesting to meet them and discuss their working practices and development of ideas, particularly as they work very differently to one another.

Marie Grismar prepared before coming, with ideas quite well developed before arriving. When she arrived she had already planned to complete an outcome of an underwater sculpture within the 3 month residency. In the open house she displayed a range of drawings of corals and other underwater creatures, some drawn while diving. She had gained a more thorough understanding of these structures through this and through speaking with scientists and observing their work in the labs.

Although there is much of this process that I did not see my impression of it was that is was similar to  how I have been working, setting a plan for an outcome rather than coming to a new assignment openly.

Her explorations were detailed, but she had chosen the subject matter in advance rather than being led by what she found.


Sandra Kühne's approach was more exploratory and free, very much lead by what was found when arriving here. Her work had taken an unexpected direction incorporating blue and new media of blue ink, previously works contained little color, and consisted of mainly cut paper. Her exploration used a range of ideas representing the sea in different ways and observations of lines in different contexts such as ropes and charts. One of her lines of enquiry was scientists represent the world visually, and she made lots of comparisons between this and art.

One aspect of her working process that I found particularly interesting was the way she displayed all of her work on the wall. All of her sketches, photos, and other experiments are on display all the time. She uses this as a way to make connections and brain storm ideas. I found speaking to her really inspiring, in particular the way she made connections and wasn't afraid to take her work in new directions. I am interested to try this process of reviewing my work together. I am doing a range of drawing and sketchbook activities at the moment with access art, through which I am building up a range of seemingly unrelated drawings and explorations, it will be interesting to draw them together and look for links and common themes.



No comments:

Post a Comment