Shedding Plates Like Snakes 2017

Spray-Paint, Paper, Digital Video

A collaboration with graphic artist Martin Elden for Hidden Doors, Leith Theatre, Edinburgh. Martin Elden:(https://www.livingapart.xyz)

In visual art, Horror Vacui refers to the fear of white or empty space. Our project enacts and investigates this term in relation to the laborious and detailed work of stencils, tinted negatives and digital video cut-outs and in contrast to the peeling, dilapidated spaces of the Leith Theatre. The paste-up tiles are inspired by the style and pattern of Talavera tiles which adhere to the principle of Horror Vacui. Projected into and onto this space is the cut-out, replicated image of Loie Fuller's interpretation of the serpentine dance, filmed and hand-tinted by the Lumière Brothers in 1897 to evoke the effect of coloured light projection. Just as the dancer reveals and conceals herself, the tiles appear from within the darkened space and under and through the projected light.