The use of Materiality by Selected Artists
Robert Rauchenberg
https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/art/search-artwork?page=4
Rauchenberg was a young artist in New York, living in the urban decay and not having the money to pay for canvasses he started working on Found materials. Fabrics, debris. He pieces together found items, thick oozy paint, lace, textures from discarded items, and screen prints working in panels not unlike a blown up patchwork. He uses the materials to create compositional elements and material fields. This patchwork utilises the discarded to make a comment about and bring into the art world, the Everyday.
OSCAR MURILLO
He dips into the history of the ready-made but rarely presents the materials as they are. The collected items are reworked and layered. He uses Colombian packaging and food (such as corn) to tell us about his heritage and the culture clash of a new life in London, making bigger comments about globalisation etc. The work is heavy, almost dirty with layer upon layer, with a blurring between different media all giving you the impression that the work is made rapidly. Works, although often of 2D flat format aren’t just presented stretched on a frame. They may be hung like a curtain or draped like a flapping patchwork tarpaulin or folded on the floor. What is the work, can you walk on it, what are the conventions? The back of the works aren’t hidden and sometimes take primary focus to become the texture and lines of the image. He uses this materiality of found items, dirt, blurring between the conventions of the gallery to convey a sense of class (socioeconomically), of place, of culture.
LORINA BULWER
Lorina Bulwer’s Needlework tells us several things about her. The availability of the materials was limited creating the need to be patched, the text is white and black with coloured stitched used as decoration, does she feel thoughts are black and white? It is made in an apparent stream of consciousness, almost shouting at us in capitalised font. The heavy working of the fabric and the crammed layout creates such a palpable sense of the artists own hand. But up close you can see the aesthetic choices being made of the decorative stitch contrast to the base textile shade. The materiality of her work is the feeling of fervour, of a voice crying out, the need to have this recorded and an overwhelming presence of the maker.
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