A FENCE IN BLOOM: "SOAKING UP" SPRING

Installation at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts

4’ x 70’ -  400 Sponges

When presented with the concept of "On the Fence: Public Art in Public Space," I wanted to create something that integrated the structure of the fence and the forces of nature. I was inspired in many ways by the artist Piet Mondrian for the link he derived at between nature and the grid pattern. I wanted to find a sculptural material that would work with the grid of the fence and could also interact with the elements of nature. Sponge material was ideal because it worked with the absorption and evaporation of water. Sponges also come in a range of colors that coincide with the colors that begin to appear in nature during the spring. By cutting the sponges into circles, it pushed the spring theme even further, by expressing the emotions we feel during this season: bouncy, playful, happy, light and cheery. The artist, Damien Hirst, has expressed similar optimistic feelings about his dot paintings. With this project I am continuing a type of genealogy of the dot pattern. This sponge installation is enriched by the recontextualization of the dot patterns that have been explored by other artists before me, such as Roy Lichtenstein, Sigmar Polke and Damien Hirst. 

I have focused on the structure of the fence as an elemental mathematical pattern to depict forms in nature. The artist, Piet Mondrian, explored the simplicity of the grid form that derived from his observations in nature. He sought to explore past the changing forms of nature to an unalterable reality. In search of this, he abstracted from nature to such a degree that at one point, his palette came to consist only of the basic primary colors. One work that demonstrates this, is titled, Composition in Red, Blue and Yellow, 1930  

By employing a simple mathematical pattern Damien Hirst created his piece titled, Amylamina, 1993. He used house paint on canvas to create circles of color in a square grid pattern. Using this model he created a two dimensional piece of art that is both fun and uplifting.  

Such a playful dot formation is reminiscent of both Roy Lichtenstein and Sigmar Polke's work. Lichtenstein's Drowning Girl, 1963, is composed of a dot print matrix, to make reference to cartoon strips. Polke also employs the four-color printing process, but pushes it further. In his piece, Bunnies, 1966, he uses the dots as a veil. The closer one tries to look at the image, the more difficult it is to see.  

The fence surrounding the Smith Gallery serves as both a barrier and a veil offering both opacity and transparency. The fence plays with a figure-ground relationship consisting of the construction of the Smith Gallery and the fence oscillating as figure and ground depending on one's perceptual gestalt.  

This installation consists of unusual material---colorful sponges cut into circles---as a medium to convey elemental shapes and colors. The fence serves as the canvas for this "paint" of sponges. Placing colorful circular sponges on the fence heightens this play of background and foreground that the fence inherently offers.  

The choice of sponges as an expressive medium enabled me to see the vibrant colors as a unique color palette predetermined by industry. Further, sponges have the quality of changing their hue when wet and dry; when wet their color becomes brighter and more intense than when dry. They also expand when wet and contract when dry. Thus, this medium has a dynamic quality, changing its color and size in conjunction with the mercurial nature of the weather. The rainy and changeable weather of the spring is ideal to exploit the quality of this medium. I reinforce this natural unpredictability with a random color arrangement of the sponges on the fence. The bright colors of the sponges are also in accord with the flowering of spring. It is at this time of the year when color begins to emerge from the starkness of winter. The fence stands vertically paralleling the idea of the upward vertical growth of plants.  

Implementation: The sponges cover the fence in a grid pattern 4 feet vertically and continue horizontally across the fence for 70 feet, assuming the identity of flowers or a fence in bloom.  

For A Fence in Bloom: "Soaking up" Spring, the sponges are attached with transparent fishing line. The colors of the sponges are arrayed randomly within the fixed grid of the fence.