Creative Lives Talk: Alexandra Carr and Colin Rennie

This week it was the first artist talk which I attended and I was introduced to Alexandra Carr and Colin Rennie who are both artists who specialise in sculpture and installation. They both work with glass as the main source of material in their sculptures. Both artists work with the theme of nature and the combination of science within art. Which is something I thought to be different and very interesting. Since I work with sculpture myself I was really intrigued about their work and how they use the' materials they use that I could perhaps use within my work.

My favourite piece of Carr's work would have to be 'Empyrean' it really stood out to me because of how much time and thought had went into making this amazing sculpture. This piece was inspired by the medieval cosmology theory of the Sun which they believed the Sun orbited the Earth like a corkscrew. To represent this theory, Carr had decided to create these nesting glass spheres and as the viewer moves around Empyrean their focus shifts from the central spheres, highlighted by the strategically golden placed accents.

Another piece that caught my eye of Carr's work would be ' A Subtle Manipulation' in this work crystal growth has been manipulated for the concepts of structure, order and chaos. This project was inspired by the trip Carr took to Iceland and she began to focus on the boundaries of the polar opposites. The process and material are the heart of this work, contrasting natural, organic materials with man made mechanisms. I really like this piece mainly because of the change when pushing the limits of the material and how it changes with time. It begins to make you question the fragility of our environment, climate change issues and about our destruction as well as our connection with the environment which is something I personally feel strong about.

Moving on to Rennie's work, my favourite would have to be the cube sculpture he made out of 30 sheets of waterjet cut glass inspired by a molecule. This is known as ATP-Synthase which is a molecule that provides energy to the cells in our body, our bodies cannot run without it. It is hard to get a full picture of the object. When people view the work, they move around, up and down the piece in order to gain and understanding of what they are actually looking at.

I really liked this piece because looking at it from different points of the sculpture it is a new piece of work in itself which is really nice to look at. Even if I don't fully understand the science behind the piece or know much about molecules I think it is very impressive and cleverly done.