Jess Riva Cooper

In my travels, I came across Jess Riva Cooper's work. I was immediately enthralled by it.

The surreal nature of the pieces piqued my interest the moment I saw them. The lack of colour tricks your eye into believing that these sculptures are simple at first glance, but once the viewer is given a moment to observe, they discover that there is almost too much detail within the piece to comprehend!

I enjoy the way that these sculptures involve an abundance of nature, and the way that this nature is directly involved with a human figure. But not in a traditional/pretty way. 

Jess Riva Cooper's sculptures are incredibly surreal, and although they are incredibly beautiful, they are almost uncomfortable to look at for too long due to the fact that the nature is growing over the women's faces.

Possibly suffocating/strangling them.

I enjoy this idea that nature is overtaking humans.

I feel that Riva Cooper's work relates back to Anj Smith's art, in the way that it is encompassing nature atop a woman's head. In a way that is partially beautiful, and partially shocking/ugly.

The empty eyes in this piece make it difficult to determine the woman's expression, but the open/partially concealed mouth suggests that she is desperate and uncomfortable.

I am incredibly inspired by Riva Cooper's work and 

intend to take influence from her work onto my own.

I am also thrilled with the coincidence that her sculptures slope at the shoulders like a bust sculpt, or a mannequin head which I am already working with. 

More of Riva Cooper's work:

I also enjoy how Riva Cooper incorporates 2D and 3D art into her sculptures. Some of the natural features are 3D, but you can see in this image that some of the stems, flowers and brown vines are painted on. This gives a nice dynamic contrast between tactile and flat.

Clay Experimentation

Alongside my experimentation with the mannequin heads, I have also been experimenting with clay.

Here, I have experimented with creating a likeness of Gaia/Mother Nature. I used square strips of clay to create interesting textures in the hair, by twisting them.
Twisting square strips is much different to twisting rounded ones, as round strips do not visibly twist, they only break and crumble. Whereas the four corners of a square strip can twist oppositely to eachother and create a noticeable twist in the hair. I have experimented with the hair here and how it flows.

I intended to add natural features to the hair, such as flowers/insects/vines/leaves, but I did not get around to it.

I also experimented with throwing clay on a spinning wheel to create a pot.
I originally intended to create a large pot that I could then sculpt into a face, to act as a flower pot.  Like below. 

Brief concept sketch.

But as I have began to experiment with clay and learn its properties, I figured that it was not within my skill range to create a head shaped flowerpot completely out of ceramics. Instead, I simply experimented with the wheel and created two pots.

Here are all three of my clay creations after firing. Unfortunately, the pot on the left did not survive in the kiln, as the bottom of it was too thick, and caused a small explosion in the kiln. See below.

Oops!

Regardless of the explosion, I think that the result is interesting. The hole in the bottom means that things can run through it. Such as water, soil, the roots of a plant, the vines of a plant, etc, etc. Just because it is broken does not mean I can't use it.

"Gaia" piece after firing

I cropped the piece to a square by covering areas with magazines - I feel that I prefer the piece now that attention has been drawn to her face.

The other experiments I have been making have been related to the smaller features of nature. I have experimented in making many different features individually and mastering them, so that I could make them on a bigger scale if I wanted to, and so that I can use the plethora of smaller objects on a larger scale piece (collectively). 

These mushrooms were created in 2 parts and baked in 2 parts.
The heads and stems are separate. They will be stuck together once fired.

Mannequin VS Drill

Original Mannequin ^

I used a drill to begin creating holes in the head of my mannequin.
It was surprisingly easy to piece through with a decent drill head.

I continued this until the entirety of the head was covered in holes.
I varied the hole size slightly as I wasn't sure of how big the flowers I was planning to use would be.

I then sourced some flowers from a friend to do a test run.
I placed the stems of the flowers into the holes, as deeply as I could.
It turns out that the mannequin head was fill to the brim with expanding foam, so it was very difficult to pierce it with the weak stems. 

I found that this effect was almost comical.
The fact that another student was using these flowers in her art meant that I could not alter them.
If I had the opportunity, I would have cut them much shorter in order to have the flowers blooming closer to her head.
It's too obvious here that the flowers have been stuck into her head. I would like to create the illusion that flowers are growing OUT of her head rather than the alternative.

I still find the imagery here very interesting. It is a good start but I have very far to go.

I also added some leaves to the holes, which I had pressed myself between two boards the night before.

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The bottom of the mannequin was solid, but with a plug that enabled you to put the mannequin on a pole/fitting, if you were using it for its intended purpose.

Once I removed it, I saw that the entire thing was flooded with expanding foam.
I worked hard with my hands and other tools to remove as much of it as I could, whilst leaving enough in there to keep the mannequin weighted. I also had to gouge a large hole into the top of the mannequin's head, to allow me to remove the foam from the head. Once I had, I saw it as an opportunity to place a torch inside its head. For experimental purposes.

This image was taken when only a small amount of the expanding foam had been removed. The light is much duller, as the foam is not very conductive to light.

Once I had removed much more of the foam, the head lit up a thousand times better.
I am not yet sure whether I wish to incorporate light into this sculpture, but it was an interesting experiment nonetheless.

She looked much more alive with the wig on.

I started trying to poke flowers into the holes in the head, through the netting of the wig. It turned out that the flower stems were far too thick, so I made some small holes in the wig's netting with a blade.

I limited the amount of flowers I added at this stage because I didn't want to completely destroy the wig.

I enjoy this image. I like how the leaves are scattered through the hair as if she had been caught in a breeze.

I captured it in an acrylic painting.

I made the skintone monotone black and white, to allow the colourful flowers to capture the eye of the viewer. I feel that it works well.



After further experimentation with the flowers and wig, I decided that it would be very difficult to use a wig AND flowers without destroying the wig in the process.

So perhaps I'll just go without a wig, because it looks pleasantly surreal that way anyway.

Green Man-nequin

Here is the mannequin head that I am working with below, before I started mutilating him.

I used a hot wire tool to burn/melt my way through the polystyrene. I manipulated the hot wire into an "O", which allowed me to quite literally scoop out the polystyrene as I went along.

I kept going until I had something much like a bowl shape.
The head was completely empty and it was a bit creepy.

I was intending to use this head as a plant pot, so I made sure that the edges around the bowl were still as thick as possible, so that they would not break when I added soil.

For no reason whatsoever, I decided to place a torch inside the head. It was at this point that I realised that I had burnt far too close to the eyes with the hot wire tool, allowing the light to shine through perfectly. It is almost as if his eyes are glowing.

I decided to experiment with this concept in a dark room, using coloured paper to manipulate the colour of the light.

The fact that the polystyrene is so porous and translucent means that it conducts the light from the torch amazingly. The torch lit the whole head up in the dark room.

I placed thin green tissue paper over the torch light to filter the light.
The green light instantly made for a much more interesting piece.

The green is very fitting for the natural direction I am taking my art.

Close ups of the photography reveal the detail of the polystyrene, made up of a thousand tiny circles, that are all different tones of green as the light passes through them. I find this very interesting, and wonder if I could take this further..

This photography reminds me of the "Green Man" motif.

The Green Man is a man constructed purely of nature, usually leaves and greenery. He is said by the Pagans to be a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of growth each spring.

Here are three pieces of art resembling him.

The Green Man is a very vague idea, and as you can see, every piece of art of him is different. I enjoy this anonymity and also the involvement of nature atop a human. It almost relates back to Anj Smith once again in the way that the hair of the man is long and intertwined with nature.

In Paganism, the Green Man is the near equivalent of the male Mother Goddess. He is the father of nature, which relates heavily to the direction I wish to take.

I think that it could be interesting to follow this idea, and create a "Green Man" of my own.

Heads!

I acquired 3 different types of mannequin head to experiment with.

Two made of polystyrene and one made of a harder plastic as to give me a stronger base.

I had 3 original ideas, inspired predominantly by Anj Smith's work.

1: Hollow out the head of one of the polystyrene heads to allow me to plant a real, living plant in it.

2. Use air drying clay to create a clay sculpture similar to Edward Jonas's work.

3. Drill holes into the hard plastic mannequin's head, to enable me to place live fresh flowers into it, making her much like a vase.

I also bought two wigs, in order to give the mannequins a more realistic, live and feminine look to them.

This grey one, and an equivalent brown one.

I chose grey because I knew that the features I would be adding to it would be bright and colourful, whereas the wig is dull and monotone. I envision a stark contrast which could work nicely.


Then I started working with the mannequin heads.

Since I knew I was going to be mutilating the heads I bought, the first action I took was a precautionary measure. I took a plaster cast of my female polystyrene head.

This way, if I made a mistake with any of the heads that I have bought, instead of buying another one, I can make a new one to work with from the cast.

I did this by thoroughly lubricating the head with vaseline, before pushing it into a shuttering box full of plaster. I applied a lot of heavy tape to ensure that the head did not move whilst the plaster dried.
I made the shuttering box and plaster myself.

It left an entertaining imprint.

Now I can begin working on them properly.