Folded Morphologies, is a collection of cut and folded, three-dimensional, screen printed objects that are installed in multiple ways to evoke an encompassing experience for the viewer by using both scale and multiples. The objects are suggestive of cellular forms, disease and its effect on human tissue. Using different techniques to display these modular forms, each approach references ideas of accumulation, growth and collection.
This exhibition is an examination of the dichotomy between the striking beauty of photomicrographs and the diseases they expose. I found inspiration in the patterns and structures hidden from everyday view through magnified, color-enhanced photographs of cells. Even the most deadly diseases appear beautiful on a cellular level. Referencing the introduction of medical treatment, often involving the addition of a toxin, the abnormal interrupting the normal, I make objects that speak to my fascination with what lies beneath the surface. This installation represents clusters of forms where comparisons between each modular unit can be examined.
Screen printing allowed me to layer numerous amounts of information quickly, creating both unique images and multiples. Printing on drafting vellum, a thin, pliable, frosted substrate, I explored the dichotomy between transparency and density. Examining the relationships between interior and exterior of the folded forms, the flats of color offer a visual rest allowing only faint traces of imagery to be read from the opposite side. The overlapping imagery is color coded to represent the cells, disease and medicine. I appropriated color from cellular photographs and combined them in new ways; using blacks and purples to indicate disease, neutrals, reds and warm colors to reference the body and fluorescents to symbolize a toxin or foreign element that has become integrated into the system.
After the printing was completed, areas of the vellum were cut away, using the printed information to guide where the cuts occurred. Each piece was cut uniquely and became an intuitive process allowing for variation within each group of prints. I used the cutting as a metaphor to create a void or defect. The lace-like prints were then bent, folded and tucked into themselves, twisting and contorting to imply a trauma or ailment that has altered its state.
Each grouping of structures received a particular surface treatment. I used a thin layer of silicone to coat either one side of the object or the entire form. The material alludes to the body’s interior. It is visceral, tactile and references a wet, juicy substance that provides an emphasis in content between attraction and repulsion. Exploring diverse topology within each object, the forms emerge as ambiguous, delicate structures that balance between allure and uncertainty. Each one varying slightly from the next, none are affected in quite the same way.
This body of work has evolved from many experiments with the screen-printing process and investigations with a variety of materials using abstraction, metaphors and material combinations. I have selected materials that would facilitate my attempt to reference a delicate and dynamic tension within the series. Exploring formal qualities, layers of subtle, abstracted imagery create these beautiful biomorphic representations. Withered and delicate, the objects also possess and alluring vibrancy. I am interested in an area between abstraction and an implied narrative, where the viewer is given subtle clues to my perspective, allowing for connections to be made with other systems of growth and form.
This exhibition is an examination of the dichotomy between the striking beauty of photomicrographs and the diseases they expose. I found inspiration in the patterns and structures hidden from everyday view through magnified, color-enhanced photographs of cells. Even the most deadly diseases appear beautiful on a cellular level. Referencing the introduction of medical treatment, often involving the addition of a toxin, the abnormal interrupting the normal, I make objects that speak to my fascination with what lies beneath the surface. This installation represents clusters of forms where comparisons between each modular unit can be examined.
Screen printing allowed me to layer numerous amounts of information quickly, creating both unique images and multiples. Printing on drafting vellum, a thin, pliable, frosted substrate, I explored the dichotomy between transparency and density. Examining the relationships between interior and exterior of the folded forms, the flats of color offer a visual rest allowing only faint traces of imagery to be read from the opposite side. The overlapping imagery is color coded to represent the cells, disease and medicine. I appropriated color from cellular photographs and combined them in new ways; using blacks and purples to indicate disease, neutrals, reds and warm colors to reference the body and fluorescents to symbolize a toxin or foreign element that has become integrated into the system.
After the printing was completed, areas of the vellum were cut away, using the printed information to guide where the cuts occurred. Each piece was cut uniquely and became an intuitive process allowing for variation within each group of prints. I used the cutting as a metaphor to create a void or defect. The lace-like prints were then bent, folded and tucked into themselves, twisting and contorting to imply a trauma or ailment that has altered its state.
Each grouping of structures received a particular surface treatment. I used a thin layer of silicone to coat either one side of the object or the entire form. The material alludes to the body’s interior. It is visceral, tactile and references a wet, juicy substance that provides an emphasis in content between attraction and repulsion. Exploring diverse topology within each object, the forms emerge as ambiguous, delicate structures that balance between allure and uncertainty. Each one varying slightly from the next, none are affected in quite the same way.
This body of work has evolved from many experiments with the screen-printing process and investigations with a variety of materials using abstraction, metaphors and material combinations. I have selected materials that would facilitate my attempt to reference a delicate and dynamic tension within the series. Exploring formal qualities, layers of subtle, abstracted imagery create these beautiful biomorphic representations. Withered and delicate, the objects also possess and alluring vibrancy. I am interested in an area between abstraction and an implied narrative, where the viewer is given subtle clues to my perspective, allowing for connections to be made with other systems of growth and form.
Lesley Sickle
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