Artist Biography

 

I define the process of 'Chain Reaction' as an accumulative practice, driven by obsessive making. My work is mainly sculptural, using the sculptures to create immersive installations. Photography and video are also a key part of the way that I make work, with a focus on the experience of the viewer. This project is concerned with the narrative of the chain. I added links to the growing chain sculptures day by day, increasing their length the more time spent in lockdown. I have grown the chain until they fill my room; until I can reach the ground from the window of my second floor flat, until I have felt that I could not make another chain. I have cohabited with these piles of chains that have built up around me in my bedroom, which has also become my makeshift studio. This body of work explores the themes of entrapment, escapism, and the mundane repetition of lockdown days. This series of sculptures are inspired by Tehching Hsieh's year-long performances where he committed himself to repetitive processes in order to discuss the passing of time and the mundane nature of life.

My practice explores ways of making the viewer feel a visceral response, drawing on the work of sculpture and installation artist, Cornelia Parker. Through this, my work has become increasingly about the documentation of my sculptures and installations. This has been driven by the limitations of online art school, being forced to show my work to the viewer digitally with no context of scale or materiality, mediated by the camera and laptop screen because of the global pandemic. You are doing the same right now as you read this, viewing my artwork through the pixels of your screen. Drawing inspiration from Dziga Vertov's essay, Man with a Movie Camera, my photography work explores ways that the camera can change the way my artwork appears with consideration of ways that I can document these images. Because my installations have to be taken down, I like the permanence of the photograph, how it will outlive the artwork itself, outlive these strange times that we are living through. Because of this, I make the documentation of the art into artwork in its own right. Take a look...

Instagram: @mollyhuxleyart