School of Fine Art Sculpture & Environmental Art
Elliot Mountain
My practice is a response to the constant stimulation of our digital world. As we enter the 5th industrial revolution, I often feel like a puppet to my phone, unable to switch off. The digital stimuli, which constantly creeps further into every aspect of my life, horrifies me. To counter this, I focus on manual processes with a drive to become self-sufficient. I employ a process driven practice which tries to explore the interplay between chemical shifts in nature and my place in our single serving society.
I am interested in the energy within our land and history, and how energies and forces transfer through biological and industrial changes. Additionally, I research how context and history can be passed through objects and materials.
For my degree show project, I have built an installation with the main works being two large ceramic tree trunk sculptures. The tree trunks are supported by reused tree grilles and surrounded by a series of slip-cast pigeon decoys. The installation depicts a fabricated reality, one orchestrated using raw materials. It aims to show stagnant growth, revealing falsities and the world my algorithm has chosen for me.
A Stale Conversation Between Two Brothers
A Stale Conversation Between Two Brothers’ visualises my outlook towards our algorithmic lifestyles. In this installation, I have tried to envisage a fabricated reality – one devoid of growth, stagnant and stale. The project delves into themes of static growth amid a society constantly innovating and evolving. The hollowness of the works is meant to reveal a sense of clarity within the deception, Like a lie you can see straight through. I find that pigeons mimic the primal behaviours of people and that they are the products of our excess. Their presence in the installation adds realism and it humanises the work. The cast iron tree grilles ground the installation, prompting viewers to place it within our urban society.
My practice is based on a process-driven exploration of the interplay between chemical changes and my response to our digitally saturated, over-consumptive societal mentality. Through manual processes and a focus on self-sufficiency, I delve into the energies of land and history, tracing how these forces transfer through biological and industrial changes.
Taub Pigeons
Pigeons are not just pigeons. To me, they represent the workings of a society, displayed through primal instinct. They are complex creatures that exhibit dominance and a primal need to consume, much like humans do.
Pigeons are synanthropic animals, meaning they are wild but predisposed to live at the expense of human waste. I feel a connection to pigeons. I too feel predisposed to consume and think a certain way. I spend hours scrolling through Instagram, consuming the same old content. I eat a diet of brown and yellow food. What difference is there between my programming and that of a pigeon? I sympathize with pigeons, but I also slightly envy them for their simpler life.
The slip-cast pigeons in my installation serve as a metaphor for humans in this stagnant state. They are casts of decoy pigeons, a copy of an imitation, symbolizing our vices, mundane living, and primal instinct to survive. The pigeons reflect their environment, They adapt to what their world looks like.
I call the pigeons “Taub,” the German word for both pigeon and deaf. Both meanings can be interchangeable. “Pigeon” can be used as a quasi-insult to describe someone who can’t hear or understand, someone who can’t or won’t listen. Someone who becomes a pigeon and avoids problems by flying away. In the current state of our world, I think we are all being pigeons. We are all Taub.
Pigeons represent urban life, the life of a wild animal tamed and underutilized by city living. Throughout history, pigeons have been used as a social network to relay messages, some of the most regarded and needed animals in societies. Now, they’re scrap, ignored. I feel sorrow for them, and I want to honor them in this exhibition, which is why I have given them shiny legs.
Pigeons are called vermin. They feed on the scraps of human waste and consume all our negative energies. And yet, they survive. If pigeons just eat our waste, are we too the vermin? They are hearty creatures who use numbers to survive. They stay strong. They represent a beautiful, resilient society.
Between The Soil And The Sky
My pottery is influenced by the textures and colors of the land, notably, from an abandoned ironstone mine near Goathland, North Yorkshire. I incorporate dry glazes, stains, and metal oxides into my ceramics, often using iron oxide powders to connect my pieces to their origin. This practice not only simplifies my process but also enriches the context of my work by echoing the actual iron mines.
For my “From The Soil To The Sky” project, I collect wild clay from a pool near the mine and process it by hand. This manual approach aligns with my commitment to self-sufficiency and sustainability, as it allows me to reclaim and repurpose waste material from the mining operations. The forms I create, inspired by industrial culture, reflect the history and the journey of the clay, celebrating the hands that have touched it before mine.
In my practice, I experiment with textures and colours using simple stencils and visual tools, drawing inspiration from the images and colours of the Moors. My final works aim to balance fragility and strength, with shapes that evoke natural forms like droplets and sedimentary rocks. Techniques like marbling and scraping create unique textures, emphasizing the materiality of the clay and its historical context. I explore both additive and subtractive processes to create textures that resonate with the industrial and natural themes in my work. Each piece tells a story of its materials and origins, embodying the intersection of nature and industry.
