These images are of my experimentation with casting shadows using my taxidermy magpie and a strong LED light.
These testers are preparation for my degree show exhibition, the piece of work for this exhibition will have the magpie casting a large threatening shadow. I like the way these have photographs have turned out and have helped in my ideas on what I will be doing.
‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.’
These are some little testers I made using resin and my small plasticine magpies. I really like how they turned out, i made 7 overall. It’s like the ryhme and the superstition have been frozen in time, the magpies left suspended to contemplate their meaning and purpose.
Current Work
I have been continuing in working with my interest in superstition. I have recently created this piece to be used an exhibition called Interim10.
Again, I have been playing with the visual representation of a single magpie. This piece was titled ‘One for sorrow and One for Deception.’
In the images you can see that on the floor of the exhibition space i created a mock trap from a cardboard box and twig, with a mirror and jewellery underneath to entice this magpie. However, whilst this magpie is being deceived and drawn into a trap I had another magpie ontop of a wall next to a nest looking down on it’s partners deception and the inevitable bad luck it will soon represent.
This piece of work was created for my current theme of Superstition. In this theme I am looking at the recognised symbols of superstition and their affect on the viewer.
In the above images I created a large scale plasticine magpie and placed it in front of both a broken and unbroken mirror. In doing this I am confronting the viewer with the image of a lone magpie, believed to be bad luck, reflected in a mirror which is also another symbol of bad luck when broken. This then poses the question of whether the bad luck is void with the reflection of this lone magpie making it 2?
‘Seven for a secret’ 2009
This is a piece of work i made for an exhibition on repetition, replicas and mulitples. I produceed this piece while working on the theme of Superstition.
I molded these quick little magpies from plasticine. I nailed 7 of them crudely to a wall in a dark space with light from a lamp above them casting shadows onto the wall. I like how it turned out and the different shadows cast in the wall.
