STUART HAYGARTH
“Play” is a notion I wholly approve of in art and design. This can be a mad world that all too often takes itself, and everything else, too seriously.
Haygarth, meanwhile, has always appealed partly because his work appears to do the opposite. Best known for his stunning chandeliers composed of found objects such as the brightly coloured plastic “flotsam and jetsam” gathered from walks along Dungeness beach (Tide, 2005); used party poppers (Millennium, 2003) or prescription spectacle lenses (Optical, 2007), he stands out for being unafraid of colour, light, cheap plastic and all that which other people might view as rubbish.
Tide, 2005, D 150cm,
Found beach objects, monofilament line, painted MDF ceiling platform & 100w incandescent light bulb.
The original Tide chandelier is part of a larger body of work based on the collection of 'man made' debris washed up on a specific stretch of Kent coastline at Dungeness. After several years the stockpile of collected material was sorted and categorized and several individual pieces of work were produced. The Tide chandelier is created from clear and translucent objects of all colours, primarily made of plastic. What I enjoyed about this particular work was that each individual element is different in shape and form, yet they come together to produce one perfect sphere.The artist uses the sphere to evoke the shape of the moon whose force creates the tide that washes the items he collects on shore. This spherical display of objects could be seen as a celebration of modern manufacturing or a negative display of waste carelessly disposed of in the sea. Both interpretations have a link to human behaviour. In my project, I would like to focus less on the commentary of careless disposal of wastes, but rather, focus on the aesthetics and way the artist has composed the found objects.
Tide, 2012, D 150cm
Found clear plastic objects, monofilament line, painted MDF ceiling platform & 100w incandescent light bulb.
Based on the original Tide from 2005 this piece is created totally from clear colourless plastic collected from the beaches of the UK. The plastic objects are cosmetically transformed into sandblasted glass elements produced by the abrasive nature of the sea water and sand.
The comparison between clear modified objects ad original object is clear. It would be good to consider both aspects in the project too.
