What if there are no right answers, just mud balls?
Soil and mould are the raw materials of Emma Saffy Wilson's practice. This organic matter, essential to our fragile earthly existence, is often disregarded as repulsive, something to be scrubbed away in the relentless battle for sanitisation. Alluding to the futile endeavour to apply order to disorder the artist cultivates mould, forms mud and frames soil; exerting her human will on unstable materials. By nature and design her work is ephemeral.
It is the cultural significance of dirt that is critical for Wilson. The universal subjects of growth and decay, fertility and death are inevitably interrogated when working with such elemental substance. However other light hearted subjects are equally significant to her practice. She makes reference to the playful childhood attraction to dirt and takes an alternative, often humourous, view of the negative connotations of the word in western language; dirty war, filthy swine, mucky cow. The artists own use of language is also revealing; her insistence on 'dirt' and 'soiled' rather than 'earth' and 'soil' is indicative of her approach. In a recent work, Dirty Windows, she obscures the audiences view of a sublime seascape by the smearing the glass, this simple act interrogates beauty ideals, provokes distaste and confronts assumed domestic standards.
Caroline Mawdsley
It is the cultural significance of dirt that is critical for Wilson. The universal subjects of growth and decay, fertility and death are inevitably interrogated when working with such elemental substance. However other light hearted subjects are equally significant to her practice. She makes reference to the playful childhood attraction to dirt and takes an alternative, often humourous, view of the negative connotations of the word in western language; dirty war, filthy swine, mucky cow. The artists own use of language is also revealing; her insistence on 'dirt' and 'soiled' rather than 'earth' and 'soil' is indicative of her approach. In a recent work, Dirty Windows, she obscures the audiences view of a sublime seascape by the smearing the glass, this simple act interrogates beauty ideals, provokes distaste and confronts assumed domestic standards.
Caroline Mawdsley
