Thursday 12 November 2015

Sunday 8 November 2015

Assembly House Studios, Leeds

Friday 30 October 2015

The Travels of the Toucher

8 page publication, with texts and images, edition of 50


On a wet and windy day, they journeyed out to Tigh na Cailleach, home of the Old Woman of the Glen, just before she withdrew into her shelter for winter. They were not sure what they might find, or what to do when they got there. They were walking a path that had been walked for thousands of years. They were hopeful that they would make their destination on time, and fearful of regret, lest they should have to turn back. It was not that time or nature were against them; it was simply that the elements continued, and would continue interminably, before them, after them and in spite of them. The night was drawing closer with every step further into the heart of the glen. Colours were changing to soft and rusty ochres, greens and bluey-greys. The form of the land was becoming gentler and more rounded. The deep, broad loch had now tapered off into a trickling stream; yet the wind raged on, and the rain beat with a stinging patter against their faces.



 



photography leslie-jones

Helleristningane Clay

Excerpt from sound installation, component of The Travels of the Toucher, 2015.


Blue sack, concealing Helleristningane Clay sound installation, component of Two Poke Holes and the Art of the Toucher, 2015. Photo by Leslie Jones.

Interview with Edinburgh Scupture Workshop

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop: You have written about your interest in creation stories and the origins of the creative drive. What has been the starting point for making during your time on residency at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop?

Dillan & Eleanor: The very first thing we did was to make two armholes in a card board box, and put it over our head while modelling some clay, one box each and one lump of clay each. We didn’t have any idea for how it should turn out, it was just a way of exploring the material, and how to begin making something before an idea has formulated.

ESW: During your time here you have made further constructions with similar armholes that obstruct your reach and sight, prioritising a tactile encounter with lumps of clay. When you have finished working into the clay, taken the box off your head or walked around the screen, and seen what you have made, what do you do next?

D&E: That is a key question - what now? Where is the work? There is some thing like a performance in the making and something like a sculpture left over after that, but we felt that neither was really it, or that the work is somewhere in-between those things. So to answer the question: We weren’t really sure what to do next, because we weren’t really sure what we had done with the clay or what it was. We tried different things - writing and drawing, building up and breaking down the clay. We had a similar experience when we went on our trip to see the ancient sites. We didn’t really know what to do when we got there, and we didn’t really understand what they were, or even why we were there.

ESW: You have been writing about the sculptural experiments as a way to reflect upon them. Can you talk about how your writing functions within your practice and how it affects the decisions about the rest of the work you make in photography, film, drawing and with sound? Do you see writing as a way to negotiate the un knowns that arise in the making process?

D&E: It might not reveal what is unknown, but it can help to give clarity to those ideas or feelings that one is aware of when making the work, but that just pass fleetingly through the mind at the time, and may even seem inconsequential. It’s also a way to explore somebody else’s work – to really pay attention to what you are looking at and your response to that. It’s an attempt to focus on your encounter with the work, rather than what you think it ought to be about. As with all the other material we work with, such as photography, writing feeds back into what we are doing, as something to reflect upon, and as an element to combine with other things. It’s all potential matter for the constellation of stuff that makes up the work.

Thursday 29 October 2015

Two Poke Holes and the Art of the Toucher

An exhibition at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop at the end of our residency.  The work produced for the exhibition has been kindly funded by Det Norske Kulturrådet/The Norwegian Arts Council.

Wednesday 28 October 2015

Two Poke Holes and the Art of the Toucher




Two paintings (acrylic on paper) with two carved turnips and a ceramic object, from the exhibition Two Poke Holes and the Art of the Toucher at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

Sunday 25 October 2015

Tuesday 14 July 2015

Yorkshire Sculpture Park Visiting Artists

Eleanor Clare & Dillan Marsh are Visiting Artists at Yorkshire Sculpture Park .  Their residency has been kindly supported by the Park and Bergen Kommune.

Saturday 20 June 2015

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop Micro Residency Artists 2015/16 Announced

Link to Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

Monday 15 June 2015

Halhjem Helleristninger

From this blood was made the sea and the lakes,
From this flesh the earth, and from this hair the trees,
From these bones the mountain; rocks and pebbles from the teeth.

It was a secret, hidden place. The dark, almost purple hued crag of rock loomed out; a natural incision into the otherwise soft and mossy track. At first it seemed that it would reveal a dark and hollow space within, but it was simply a surface. The rock was porous and weather beaten.

Such a flood of blood flowed from his sore and gaping wounds, that all were drowned, except for a couple of lovers, who escaped by climbing into a narrow oaken casket. They were carried along by the current of thick flowing blood, still warm and pulsing from the throbbing wound. They clung onto each other whilst being jolted forcefully together by the rhythmical pounding of the waves against the sides of the casket.

A great, yawning, cavernous void opened out onto the fjord. The cold, dark water lay silently beneath the arched crevice of rock, seeping in between the tiniest of cracks, and leaving behind a slimy coating of rusty red as it withdrew at low tide. There appeared to be total darkness inside the cave, a place seemingly without walls, leading on and on and on.

The lips surrounding the darkness of the interior are parched and bleached by sunlight. Just inside, the air is thick with moisture as the water evaporates in the heat. Further on, the air seems to clutch at one, like the cold and icy fingers of death clinging on to a living body; caressing its back and loosely smothering its face. Yet there is a stirring in the water, as though something within has come to life.

The carvings had been rounded and worn away over time, and had been highlighted in red paint. Things fade and disappear over time; they shrink back into the world of matter, formless and nameless, much as they may have begun. The mists of time have already erased their meaning, despite the most valiant efforts to preserve and interpret them.

As the carcass decayed, maggots appeared in its flesh. They fed upon the rotting matter, and as they did so, their form evolved into something resembling man. Their skin hardened from the soft and translucent membrane of a maggot, so that they could withstand the light of the sun and the cold of night, although they continued to live in the earth and rocks, burrowing deep into the corpse, which had first sustained them.

The skull was lifted high up above the earth, and from this became the sky,
The brain was thrown up towards the crown of the skull with such might,
That in unravelling it became the clouds.

Documentation from Kuenstlerhaus Dortmund 

Still from video loop


Tuesday 10 March 2015

Thursday 26 February 2015

Art Lab # 2 | fama_fame

Dillan Marsh & Eleanor Clare @ FamaFame Art Lab#2

Saturday 31 January 2015

NEVERODDOREVEN @ TABS - Temporary Artists' Bookfair, Berlin

Deuxpiece present NEVERODDOREVEN at The Temporary Artist's Bookfair, Berlin.

NEVERODDOREVEN represented by Deuxpiece at TABS
NEVERODDOREVEN represented by Deuxpiece at TABS
pagespread fron NEVERODDOREVEN by Eleanor Clare & Dillan Marsh