The Slops

The work The Slops is greatly inspired by down hill skiing. Through my practice I am continuing to focus on Canadian landscapes, and how I can represent them outside the traditional painting methods. Through our class discussions and readings I am interested in how objects take up space, not only in a room, but as a being with purpose. With this space it impacts the way the viewer sees the work and how they interact with it. It is clear an object has an impact on every viewer in multiple ways, however I am interested in the relationship the viewer takes on with the object if the scale is altered. Through this work I created an abstract landscape of a ski hill, using geometric glass shapes I created the appearance of skiers on the hill. With this manipulation of distance and size in the work the viewer is not only observing the work but also observing themselves in relation to the work and how there presence fits with in the object. With this questioning it creates a tension between the viewer and object that builds more emphases on the physical meaning of the work.
To create this object I assembled a sheet of canvas, and using a paper mache mixture I was able to create folds within the canvas to simulate crevasse and bumps within a ski hill. Using gesso and white paint I created the snow colour on the canvas. Using glass sheets and a glass cutter I made small and medium geometric shapes our of blue and green glass. These glass pieces that are glued to the folds and crevasse of the canvas represent down hill skiers. These abstract glass pieces are small and informal in their design to simulate distance to the viewer. Remembering my times spent in the ski lodge and the bottom of the hill, looking up at the grand mountain ahead and simply seeing shapes and blobs trailing down the mountain, I wanted to simulate a similar feeling with this work. To make this connection more clear I created the bottom glass pieces to be slightly larger in size to represent perspective that the skiers are moving closer towards the bottom of the hill therefore closer to the viewer.