Sensory Experience

 

I learn through touch. The solidity and reality of touch makes problems more real, but it also makes the ability to navigate alternative routes possible for me. This can be seen in institute of Making, where the form and possible ways of arranging the clay hands with the woven aspect were completely altered as soon as the finished clay hands found their way into my weaving studio where I had my wool picked out.

Perfection is not a friend of mine^[1]. It confounds me.  Possibility, challenge, change invigorate me and allow me to dig deeper. I plan with yarn in my hand, constantly changing and improvising.

My work conjures the power of touch. You want to run your hand along the textures, putting your hand to mine. Like art historian Sarah Wilson says of Hick’s work: “You Want to Live with it [the artwork], to touch it and to be with it.” (Wilson 4:16) The connection of touch is almost radical in our visually driven society. Touch enables a connection which is much more immediate than visual knowledge.

The seduction climbs from the pit of the belly, texture is a primal, guttural instinct for me.  I create texture therefore I am; I breathe therefore I create texture.  Decoration and pattern are merely masks for texture, scars scraped in, thickness encased in warp.  Language is so utterly impoverished describing touch and texture. Art forbids touch, galleries prevent it and status inhibits it, but is my instinct for texture touch-related or does the eye play its part? Where does my seduction lie?

Figure 5 Britta Fluevog, Crossings: Transcending the Border, 2014. Mixed Media, 6’ x 6’ x 1’. Detail of hand at the Concourse Gallery. Photo: Britta Fluevog.

Figure 6 Britta Fluevog, Crossings: Transcending the Border, 2014. Mixed Media, 6’ x 6’ x 1’. Detail of rug and barbed wire at the Concourse Gallery. Photo: Britta Fluevog.

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[1] Recreating work in order to achieve some idea of perfection or completed idea does not feature in my practice.