School of Fine Art Sculpture & Environmental Art
Connie Woods Gundry
I wish I had the power to climb inside someone’s brain, but because I don’t, I’ve decided to become an artist and do this in a multimedia format, like a non intrusive surgery. I work in a variety of disciplines, such as – organiser of events, documenter, maker of mobile sculptures, ideas merchant, collaborator, collector of found words and objects. I am reliant on a few mediums: extensive list making, diagrams, writing (rhymes, scripts, stories, etc.) and drawing.
Have you ever wondered about sticking your finger in a plug socket? Well, I am interested in the gap between those two plug sockets in which I can construct an unravelling world. The continual thread is the wire along the floor, leading away from the constructed scene to the points of electricity at the wall. The second source of energy is found in the gap between the sockets, the “artwork”.
Whilst realising my individual logic may be flawed, there is historical and anecdotal relevance to all information collected in my immediate environment. My work is based upon my own wariness of accepted information, and a feeling of my sanity being relevant to my art practice.
This is more of an invitation, than an attempt to set these narratives in stone. The unreliable narrator, the court jester, the storyteller, the rumour mill… must be respected and included.
instagram: @conniewg
conniewoodsgundry@gmail.com
Information Desk
Part of my degree show instillation (2024), which revolves around a desk manned by myself. I will be writing throughout the week of the show being open, adding to a ceramic ring binder titled “Artisan Cigarettes by John Armitage”. Viewers are invited to read aloud or listen to these short stories, poems and thoughts, placing them on the overhead projector.
The desk consists of a shop style countertop and shelves, displaying ceramic cups. There are bone hooks, holding scissors and the attendant’s uniform. Desk opening hours vary (read Signs). It is usually manned by the attendant. Badges and writings will be made and distributed here. There are various sculptures in the room, including a tower made from bones and ‘Upskirting an Angel’, which serve to illustrate the writings.
M&S Ghost Tour
Performance event taking place on 29/2/2024, on the last night of the Sauchiehall Street M&S being used as an artists’ studio.
It was around an hour long and approximately 25 people attended. A live performance, then documented in a subsequent publication (this is for sale in my degree show space). I played a fictional “Ghostkeeper” who met the attendees at the back entrance of the M&S, and led them on a narrative-historical ghost tour of the building. Along the way, we met ghosts who brought to life the characters of M&S’ imagined past. The ghosts were played by peers, for example – Laurie as ‘The Outlawed Carrier Bag’. All of the characters appear in the short story in the publication, which weaves together a fiction, inspired by some actual history of the M&S and surrounding Sauchiehall Street area, and the first person perspective of the “Ghostkeeper”.
Not in a morbid way, just in a normal way
As part of my degree show instillation, 2024.
A tower constructed from bones and shells, sourced from local butchers and restaurants (notably, The Golden Trawler in Chinatown nr. Stow). Flag from plant and sanitary disposal bag, model trees from matchboxes, grape stems, and lichen. The sound of ‘Bone Song’ emanates from the tower, sung by Connie, Laurie, Tamsin and Ruby.
Snail Walk
2023-24
Performance with mobile papier-mache sculpture, to be pushed or sat inside. This walk was from Stow College to Queen Street Station and back. The shell has multiple purposes, to transport materials or people, with antennae that carry sound from the outside to the inside. Alternatively, it is as a protective environment for the maker, and a space for dark and quiet.
