Indevelopment, 2008

120cm (w) H 130cm (h) approx

newspaper, rice glue, monofilament

‘Indevelopment’ (2008) is formed of individual sheets of newspaper. The used and donated newspapers were stored in piles from which sheets are taken one by one and rolled. As the work builds up, the surface begins to slope and the layers of the grid slowly shift off centre.

This work was originally inspired by basketry, a craft which traditionally utilises available materials, and John Cage’s Fontana Mix (1958). In Fontana Mix, the reader is provided with separate transparencies of lines, dots and a grid. These provide a set of rules to make music, by overlaying lines and dots on a grid. The rules are followed not knowing the outcome, but it is already controlled by the system of making – as with this work. The appearance of colour depends on the images on the news sheet and its positioning in the pile. This is controlled by where the sheets happened to be placed on the pile, not by the artist. Some elements are controlled and some elements are left to chance.

Weaving whether on a loom or in basketry is ordered to enable function and control pattern. The structure used in this artwork references the crisscrossing of regular basketry weaving, but refuses to conform to a coherent structure. Indevelopment appears as if frozen in a moment in time just as the structure begins to spin out of control – becoming more chaotic, as if developing into a different form.

Find out more about how basketry has inspired my artwork here.