“I want the experience of my work to create a surreal moment similar to a hallucination,” A quote by Donna Huanca about her immersive sculptures, installations, and performances. Although clothing is usually at the center of her work, which she scrounges from second-hand and local shops on her worldwide travels, I find myself attempting to create similar occurrences within the majority of the work I produce. For her, clothes serve as powerful stand-ins for the human body, as she has described: “Garments evoke bodies and carry their form and spirit.” For me, I feel all items carry their own form and spirit and aim to leave myself completely open when it comes to the materials and forms I incorporate or amalgamate within my recent works. I feel that by working in this open manner I am able to obtain a very broad spectrum of potential artistic possibilities and outcomes. I usually let the found objects dictate the initial trajectory of the work to some extent which in a sense removes an aspect of the conscious decision making process yet paradoxically expands my palette of artistic possibilities.
Since 2012, Huenca has also incorporated live models into her pieces, who she invites to improvise and interact with her surrounding sculptures and installations. Instead of models I am drawn to incorporate myself and a performative element into my work which allows me to use cross disciplinary approaches to constructing a narrative that sits somewhere between performance, painting and sculpture and although one could suggest my presence could detract from the static works, I feel that a multi-sensorial methodology allows me to reflect our cultures need within the 21st century for continual and sustained stimulation.
JAMIE WALTON 