I’m so excited to finally share information about my latest series, Blurred Lines. It’s been the most creatively fulfilling project of my summer! I wanted to outline some of the inspiration and meaning behind the new work. I hope you enjoy it.
The series’ title refers to the threshold we all navigate daily as we’re inundated with visual stimuli through social media and advertising. I wanted to ask_ what is it about an image that creates a positive response? As usual, I’ve created sculptographic works, this time investigating what traditional responses are to one of the art world’s most lasting themes_ flowers.
The language of flowers is ultimately a positive one, depicted throughout all eras and cultures. But there’s a secret language of flowers that exists beyond the beautiful images. You may know that red roses mean love while yellow ones express friendship, but in the Victorian age, the interest in floriography was ever great. Gifts of blooms, plants and specific floral arrangements revealed coded messages to the recipient, often allowing a sender to communicate unspoken feelings.
Pictured above, Karl Blossfeldt's study and Photography of plants inspired me to sculpt and create my own fanciful flower breeds.
So, I took my inspiration from this secret messaging and wondered, how do we communicate and how are we communicated to? How can I use flowers to have the people that view this series ask this question of themselves? If what we perceive through social media is real, and beautiful, do we care if it’s artfully staged or deliberate in it’s messaging? Do we bother to seek out a hidden meaning? Be it a disguised aspirational message or a deliberate advertisement? Are we willing to suspend disbelief?
Rorschach Ink Blot Test.
Apart from floral themes and meanings, another significant point of inspiration for Blurred Lines was Hermann Rorschach’s inkblot tests. When you incorporate something psychological, you automatically invite a closer interpretation of the work. Upon first inspection, you might just see the beautiful arrangement. However, if you look closer, there’s an unsymmetrical mirror version; it’s blurred self. The doubled meaning of ‘reflection’ should also be considered; meaning both light and image mirrored as well as serious thought and consideration.
The deliberate adjustment to a floral theme is designed to trick your eye and hopefully encourage you to analyze the difference between what you visually perceive and what your mind understands.
My final piece_ Blurred Lines
Are we willing to accept an image as it is presented to us? Does it matter if that image is true or false? Blurred Lines has been contrived to purposely manipulate our hunger for beauty, symmetry, colour and fulfillment, thereby illuminating our aspirational consumption of the images we engage with on a daily basis, display our personal motivations and maybe even question the mass marketing we observe in our everyday lives.
Anna ox
View the complete 'Blurred Lines' collection