[dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”]L[/dropcap]ondon-based Daisy Collingridge has developed a unique form of sculpture seemingly by accident. Her work has appeared fully formed.
Powered by social media and some well-placed accolades, her style of performance sculpture is appealing to both the photographer’s eye and the social critic’s paragraph. As with much successful contemporary art, Collingridge’s work transcends a simple medium to a point where it moves through a variety of genres and materials to create its own space. Sculpture, quilting, performance art, installation, acting, photography; all are enacted in her creative output. Changing how the work is conveyed through each medium, Collingridge is offering a space to question the construction and appreciation of the body as seen through each.
Reflecting her background in material design and fashion, Collingridge’s suits are upholstered bodies with exaggerated physical attributes. They represent the human form as an expression of a heightened self-conscious state. Overtly, Collingridge is challenging the idea that being body conscious is necessarily negative, emphasising joy and a playful wonder in her performances. That each suit has a name and a character is an added layer to those considerations and suggests a more personal reading of the performances. Could it be that each of these characters has a history? Does a timeline run from each suit back to a real person or event? Or is it just the most appropriate way to frame the ongoing exegesis of Collingridge’s artistic practice?
How would you describe your artistic practice?
Impulsive.
My current work sits in an awkward space between art, performance and fashion. It has an exploration of fabric at its core. It takes the essence of quilting to the absolute extreme. The forms are sculpted with layers of shaped wadding, stuffing and jersey to create deep reliefs that simultaneously mimic the stitches in a quilt and muscular anatomy. I have affectionately named the sculptures ‘squishys’. The term relates to the reaction in viewers to want to touch. Soft jerseys, combined with wadding and beans create irresistibly tactile objects. It is an interesting and challenging space to occupy when you cross over different disciplines.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
