Rio

Eye-worms, p.33

“The room's beige speaks of a bygone era, a relic of the early 1970’s design. Floor to ceiling windows, nicotine stained vertical blinds, and dry spider plants. Sitting there, comfortable and content, I observe our feet dangling. Tan sandals and shorts and skirts in shades of brown and orange, most of the children have basin hair cuts.

Waiting calmly; in this heavy brown room, I daydream. The sea goddess Rio, she is a living neon painting. She has neon drinks with her friends. They are playing and eating, talking on coloured phones, in the sunlight and perfect blue water. I know she will come and find me and take me away with her, because she winked at me ...”

A collection of polished mahogany and oak, with some surfaces painted, arranged as a temporary still-life sculpture. The pieces are assembled intuitively into a single composition, measuring approximately 1.5 metres × 0.8 metres × 0.6 metres. The sculpture exists primarily as a temporary arrangement for photography, using RAW long-exposure photography to record the work. During the exposure, the sculpture is illuminated by drawing with torches, making light and movement part of the photographic process rather than simply documenting the object under fixed lighting. The resulting image becomes the lasting record of an arrangement that is temporary by nature, with the physical sculpture able to be dismantled and reconfigured.