Industrial Jam
Session
Created specifically for the 2007 Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Prize Exhibition,
Werribee Mansions, Victoria
Catalogue statement:
Industrial Jam Session has developed from a body of smaller indoor sculptural
assemblages made from domestic plastic detritus and first conceived in 2005.
The earlier works, entitled Jam Session #1–#17, evolved in an organic
way, the result of a casual interest in collecting small, colourful plastic bits
and pieces for no particular reason other than the pleasure of looking at them.
Over some months in my studio, an ensemble began to grow and this inspired me
to start working with larger, human-scale plastic objects and components in a
more serious way.
I begin the process of making an assemblage by gathering together an extensive
range of plastic articles from all kinds of sources; this assortment constitutes
a ‘pallet’ of forms, shapes and colours. What then occurs is a kind of juggling-act
where my intuitive responses to the characteristics of the objects themselves
determine their final position. Getting to a point of resolution in the work
requires a large quantity of raw material and time to engage in a detailed process
of elimination and fine-tuning.
The six separate assemblages that form Industrial Jam Session each comprise four
or five plastic parts, the majority of which were originally designed for industrial
use. As the title suggests, for me this work possesses a musical and experimental
dimension—this is where the ‘language’ of the man-made forms comes to the fore
and the various objects appear to engage in a dialogue with one another. My creative
task is to perceive and then respond to this language in a way that reveals something
unique in the completed configuration.
While making this series of assemblages, it has occurred to me that regardless
of the community’s general distrust of plastic and its toxic origins, the stuff
continues to be embedded in much of our urban and rural environments. Its kaleidoscopic
colour is intoxicating and loaded with aesthetic and associative potential.
Plastic, steel, bolts
variable
Louise Paramor
Industrial Jam Session won the Highly Commended Award.
