Such an interesting chat online about how the recent pieces (made up of the hundreds of now torn up drawings from the 90s mashed up with tiny texts and copies from the old photo albums) are reminiscent of a kaleidoscope.

A kaleidoscope is such an interesting umbrella term to call the series.
A kaleidoscope made up of a number of reflections.

They work on the principle of MULTIPLE reflections. One is the actual object, the rest are reflections creating symmetrical patterns. Now the new pieces have been made up of 2,3 or 4 smaller elements stitched together by a 'band' that holds them together (healing/promoting knitting together/making a scar) they have an uncanny symmetrical feel...
A 'mirroring' which I have explored in earlier work.

As well as hinting at the scarring of bodies and the continual renewal of skin the pieces also hint possibly at a continual play with different patterns and formations of the SAME motifs and narratives that spill out differently each time a new piece is made.

So I'm hoping to write more soon about how the reflecting/mirroring that may or may not happen when we try and forget/ reorganise/obsess about deep or recurring memories plays out in my new pieces.

I should try to develop these ideas for a project bid to work with other disciplines in the researching of these ideas.

First image
Untitled from 1995(?)
Pastel on paper
Second image
Agnes, Millie, Mum Version 2
papier mache, pva glue, gold paint and gouache 

Here are some images from latest work.

And a few notes here copied from my sketchbook

'At last I am tacklingthe issue of MATERIAL AS SUBJECT.
The 'collage' needs to be brought further into the centre of the process. 

Tearing of the many photocopies from the album and loose Noskwith/Saksoshansky photos/ postcard copies important to reflect upon.
The very act of tearing is the key.

It allows for the idea of forced fragmentation - the pulling apart of the family from home/each other. The pain of my heritage in Lodz/Odessa/Chemnitz.

And then

The business of processing (digesting?) the fear of what has happened and making a new story, that  celebrates survival.

​The bucket is full of water and the little pieces are scattered in. Like a cookery session. Then LEFT.
Like time - space to age/change

Overnight and through several days PROCESSING happens.
Softening of the dispersed pieces - mixed up images. Located by chance one next to another in confusion. Akin to childhood confusion about silences, gaps, FRAGMENTS.

Then pulling these out to remake, remould into a new AMALGAMATED object. A survival piece. An object that puts the pieces back together again....

At last all settled in the new studio at Rogue.

It has become a great haven and I'm lost in the process of bringing together all the ideas for work that Ive been mulling over for the past few years. 

This question - how can the very process and form of the work equal or be the embodiment of the content? is the basis of all the work.

I feel that the space has given me the opportunity to lay out lots of previous work and drill down into this...
And at last I feel I have found the method/material and process that matches the ideas. How to describe the longing and lost joys of a fragmented, secretive past? The tearing up of old artwork (mainly pastel work) and emptying into a bucket to fuse with the blurred photocopies of the Langhammer and Sakoshansky photographs, has felt like a renewal of histories - a digestion...

I will journal the process in a blogpost later this week...
For now the space feels like a magical play space that can expand to accommodate the ever growing experiments...