Hidden Drawers : Exhibition at Kensington Palace

Exhibition of som of the outcomes of this project is now up at Kensington Palace

http://www.hrp.org.uk/KensingtonPalace/educationandcommunity/Kensingtonschools/Educationprojectsandevents

New web page

http://www.axisweb.org/artist/sarahcasey

Drawing the Delicate: exhibition

https://www.liveatlica.org/whats-on/sarah-casey-drawing-the-delicate

Work at Kensington Palace

Images of work in progress at Kensington Palace on the Kensington's flickr site :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53589066@N03/sets/72157626929559302/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53589066@N03/sets/72157626929559302/detail/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53589066@N03/with/5817938201/

Images are related to a workshop delivered in summer 2011 'Drawing the Dress Collection' and forthcoming exhibition 'Hidden Drawers' to open there summer 2012.

Invisible Lines: Drawing the Delicate | Project blogs | Artists talking | a-n

Invisible Lines: Drawing the Delicate Project blogs Artists talking a-n

Delicate values

“ The hand touches more delicately in Drawing. There is less between the hand and the image than in any other media. Drawing is fine and concise; Drawing is graceful. Think of them as spaces. These are my drawings." (Brice Marden , Statement 1979, in Brice Marden: Paintings, Drawings and Prints 1975-1980 (London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1981): 56

Sleeping Beauties

Many thanks to Alexandra Kim and her team at Kensington Palace for assiting me with the reearch that has led to this series of drawings derrived from my experiences of viewing items of underwear in the collections.

I wanted to convey the sense of care one has when viewing these artefacts. The images are score into a fine tissue surface coated in wax. In this way the marks are both 'final' ( like a pen an eraser cannot be used) and ephemeral- get too hot through a spotlight or bright sunlight and the marks will melt away, a method which sympathises with the conditions of the artefacts themselves which are kept in carefully regulated environments to preserve and protect them. The ghostly white of the scored lines reinforces this sense of absent/ present existence.

'Glimpses'. Roadside Attractions, Toronto,

Kensington Nights

Drawings in progress from studies of Queen Alexandra's night garments. Kept in the dark, brought out into the light only occasionally.

These drawings are made with grease, seeping into the paper, leaving a web like trace of garments, allowing the light to penetrate, making the drawing visible.

One unsettling question arises, will grease serve to preserve or decay the paper? And what will it look like as it ages? It is revealed by light, but may this also eventiually destroy and obliterate the image?

Grease on paper, 40x50 cm

Musing on Hegel...

"Light as such is invisible, in that nothing may be seen in it, pure light resembles pure darkess, it is obscure and tenebrous. If we see in pure light then we are pure vision, but we do not as yet see anything... Light only manifests itself as such after it has differentiated itself as light by distinguishing itself from shade".

Hegel, Philosophy of Nature

Microscopic/ Ultrasonic?

Still in progress...

The Art Of Research , Helsinki

Patina exhibited at Taik, Helsinki.

More fake-rays

Embodying x-rays

Fabric moulds of exterior body and garment forms. Using light to reveal the interior.

More interiors: in progress

Hidden Interiors#2

Studio wall 30.10.09

Exploring the interior

Extending the concern with viewing and visualising the interior ( i.e. as with a medical agenda). I had been interested in the use of xrays in textiles conservation - prodcting images that appear to be of ghostly shells of garments, their interior revealed. Could I make such an object through paper casting? Presuming the external has an internal, I made thin paper casts of hands - the intention had been to make drawings inside thse casts which would then be suspeneded and backlit, revealing the content.

Instead the form itself had some interest - its wrinkled texture, orificed appearing to reference the body directly ( more so than a garment might) - a gullet, vagina or venal structure perhaps?

I photographed the interiors of the casts, resulting in images that seem to share similarities with endoscopic images.

From these photos I have strated to make drawings in silver ink which glimmer and come in and out of focus with the lighting conditions and position of viewer- a shimmering not unlike the ultrasound technologies I have been working with produce. Interesting too tat it should be a metallic element : I have learnt preparations of samples for electron microscopy require a fine coating of a metallic element to reflect the electrons and amke the image.

Nets: what is caught, what is lost

Wire form shaped around body, peeled off and resultant shapes projected and traced in white pen on dyed nepalese paper. Paper has a leather-like quality. Once traced, drawings are coated in wax - to preserve and 'fix' the ephemeral image - the ink appears to merge into the page - it is in it , not on it. Work is concerned is with finding ways of viewing the other, interior side of the skin.