School of Fine Art Sculpture & Environmental Art
Eleanor Collier
My work is inspired by recollections of my own early years and uses period objects, toys, games, images and visual narratives to create artistic interpretations designed to evoke collective and personal memories and impressions of childhood and home, whilst also examining the importance of place and a sense of belonging to our life journeys. My work uses new, repurposed and familiar materials along with colour, form and scale to establish and enhance recognition and connection with viewers whilst also suggesting the inevitability of the passing of time.
I enjoy using a variety of simple materials and ways of making and often include representations of iconic objects to suggest narrative and encourage audience recognition and personal reminiscences and I add to add interactive element to try and enhance that connection. Whilst my installation is interactive, I also use music and moving images of place and found footage projected onto a textured, less defined surface to underlines how vague and imperfect memories can be.
Works
Degree Showcase
Play Time and Place
10 minute Degree Show Video projected onto a screen made from a 2.6 x 2 meter wooden frame, king size bedspread and 567 folded paper salt cellar shapes. The degree space is quite bright so the video appears intentionally blurry and indistinct to viewers reflecting the vague nature of memories. The linking images running throughout the video were filmed during a walk round my childhood neighbourhood of Partickhill in Glasgow and to these I added an extract from a BBC documentary from 1968 about school meals filmed in the long demolished Hyndland Dinner School, plus images of salt cellars being used as Fortune Tellers and found vintage footage of children playing and empty swing parks. There was an accompanying audio consisting of 3 songs by Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam ('If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out', 'Oh Very Young' and 'Wild World') plus 'Wild Horses' by Jacky - voted the country's favourite children's TV theme. Unfortunately unable to stream these original Copyrighted tracks with the video as my PRS Licence only covered the degree show.
