It's not possible to work in the manner in which I am and fail to register a connection with work by Rachel Whiteread. It comes up in tutorials and crits alike, and has resurfaced from time to time in my research. The most definitive parallel is that I cast directly from known and familiar objects.
Whiteread has demonstrated an almost unparalleled dedication to the process of casting, however avoids being typecast as a traditionalist by shifting from material to material (plaster/wax/resin/rubber/marble/aluminium) and working in seriality and repetition. Her work approaches the concept of dematerialisation by supplanting the object with it's opposite: the space around it.
Untitled: Twenty-Four switches (1998)
aluminium
I saw this piece recently at Tate Liverpool. I was really surprised at first thinking that the cast captured positive space as opposed to negative (which is very unlike Whitread), however on closer reflection the switches and the screws are inverted which gives rise to the fact that the face, at least, is a negative cast. The thing that really struck me however was the fact that the switches are randomly positioned, and in a solid aluminium cast of a piece of electrical equipment, this portrays a very human influence. In much the same way that Essen used his antiquated concrete radio to broadcast recent events (the rioting and looting across the country in August of this year) it moves past process and artist to suggest the relationship between us and the object.
Whiteread has demonstrated an almost unparalleled dedication to the process of casting, however avoids being typecast as a traditionalist by shifting from material to material (plaster/wax/resin/rubber/marble/aluminium) and working in seriality and repetition. Her work approaches the concept of dematerialisation by supplanting the object with it's opposite: the space around it.
aluminium
I saw this piece recently at Tate Liverpool. I was really surprised at first thinking that the cast captured positive space as opposed to negative (which is very unlike Whitread), however on closer reflection the switches and the screws are inverted which gives rise to the fact that the face, at least, is a negative cast. The thing that really struck me however was the fact that the switches are randomly positioned, and in a solid aluminium cast of a piece of electrical equipment, this portrays a very human influence. In much the same way that Essen used his antiquated concrete radio to broadcast recent events (the rioting and looting across the country in August of this year) it moves past process and artist to suggest the relationship between us and the object.
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