Documentation | Lizzie Latham

Next Steps...

Jan 29

My focus for these next few weeks will be on developing a coherent piece for the Millbank exhibition in January. I feel that the work I displayed in the pop up show is the start of bringing works together into arrangements or conversations. I will continue a rigorous practice of making and experimenting with materials. Alongside this I will create mock-up installs to test different arrangements and meaning-making.

I specifically want to print, paint and draw on top of photographs, beginning by testing monoprint and woodcut onto a variety digital prints. My aim is bring the embodied mark onto the digital print to play with dualities of surface. I want to return to a practice of drawing with the idea of bringing my body more into the work. I would also like to apply a photographic light-sensitive solution such as silver nitrate to the surface of prints and incorporate photograms/lumen prints into the hand-made print.

My research will focus on Derrida's On Touching, as well as examining Julie Kristeva's works on 'abjection' with relation to the body. I will also continue to explore Phenomenology, pedagogical texts on Embodied Learning, and New Materialism.

'Pop Up' Exhibition

Jan 21

Updated: Jan 29

Untitled Installation

I loved the challenge of pulling my ideas together for the Pop-up exhibition which took place in the Print studios just before the Christmas break. I had decided on a few key ideas that I wanted to test in the exhibition; the main ideas were the print as an object, and human presence, specifically the presence of my body in the work.

I created a 5-minute film of myself interacting with the grey frosted perspex, as if I was both trying to make tactile sense of the material and communicating with something/someone, again through touch, on the other side of the 'window'. I learned how to loop this through Q-Lab, and projected upwards through the underside of the grey perspex 'window' within the shelf I had constructed.

I had originally intended to project through the Shoji paper digital print as it would appear through the thin paper and appear to interact with the relic object in the print. However, when I showed my tutor the film, she said that she preferred it as it was; the film playing through the grey window of the shelf. I placed the Shoji digital print and a small aquatint print of a relic on the shelf with the film. I would have liked a whole day to place paper prints on and around the film to consider more the arrangement of the piece. However, I had to quickly install the cut-out print and had barely enough time to finish before the show opened!

Untitled, film (clip), 2024

Installation (detail), Digital print on Shoji paper, 50 x 24cm 2024

Installation (detail), Relic Window, aquatint on Somerset paper, (10 x 15cm) 2024 — Installation (detail), *Relic Window*, aquatint on Somerset paper, (10 x 15cm) 2024

I wanted to present the Relic 'egg' aquatint as an object, so I cut out the print with a scalpel and carefully blackened the cut paper edge with a charcoal pencil to make it completely solid. I liked the sharp neon edge of the yellow perspex against the black oval, so I made this into a high shelf on the wall above the video and print 'table'. It reminded me of Malevich displaying his paintings high around the edges of the room like Russian icons.

Again, I wish I had more time to refine my decisions about display. I used a metal shelf fixing, whereas I should have embedded the perspex in a block of wood so that it would jut out of the wall. Pete showed me how make the print look like it was floating out of the wall with a large screw and magnet. I wish I had thought to blacken the magnet with a permanent marker - next time!

Installation (detail), aquatint on Somerset paper, coloured perspex, 2024

Installation (detail), Relic Egg, aquatint on Somerset paper, 16 x 12cm, 2024 — Installation (detail), *Relic Egg*, aquatint on Somerset paper, 16 x 12cm, 2024

Installation (detail), film projection on perspex , digital print on Shoji paper, aquatint on Somerset paper, 2024

Considering Display

Now I have started combining print, photography, film and other sculptural materials, I am really keen to continue this kind of approach to, not just exhibiting work, but creating works which converse with each other in some way.

One of my favourite artists is Ian Kiaer for the way he presents works which challenge us to find connections and dialogues between form, materiality, scale and many other visual and intellectual cues.

Human Presence through film

Jan 17

Updated: Jan 28

I wrote these notes in my sketchbook prior to a tutorial:

The print is a relic
There is touch/human presence
The reliquary contains

I want there to be an obvious human presence in my work, something that is suggestive of the living body and touch. Also, as a reminder to myself that my body is present and important. There is something also about the object (print) being activated by human presence/human interaction.

In my samples of coloured perspex, I chose a frosted grey which seemed to transform anything behind it into a diffused and dissolving shadow.

I began to photograph and film my hand moving behind the perspex, and I loved the way it dissolved into shadow and then nothingness. A clear and sharp shadow was only seen when the hand/object was touching the surface of the perspex.

Hand behind perspex, photographs

Hand test 1, 2024

Hand test 2, 2024

Hand test 3, 2024

I started testing a short-range projector at home and in the studio, using stencils to create an oval cast, and projecting my films onto different surfaces of paper. I particularly liked the transparency of Shoji paper (traditionally used in Japanese screens) and I found that I was able to project the film through the back of the paper.

Projector tests at home

Testing projection through an oval frame

Projector tests in the studio

I began to sketch out how the film might be displayed in an exhibition, cast upwards through a plinth. The lid of the plinth would be the grey perspex and the film would project upwards as if contained within the plinth.

At home, I made a mock-up of the sketch using a cardboard box as the plinth, and books to prop up the projector. I propped the perspex sheet on the open top of the box and tested the projection through a variety of materials.

Mock-up of plinth projection

The first photograph of the yellow

relic window worked best in these tests; when the hand plays about the yellow sequins it suggests a manual device with buttons. There is some interaction between the movement of the hand and the arrangement of the relic components.

Because I was concerned about not having enough time to construct a good quality plinth, I began to consider a shelf in which I could embed the sheet of perspex.

I sourced a piece of plywood which had the right size and thickness, as well as a lovely light streak running through its grain. I was shown how to input the dimensions of the shelf into the laser cutter, as well as the cut out 'window' which I was to embed my perspex.

The perspex fit the window but was about 0.5cm thinner than the shelf, so to make the perspex sit flat inside the frame I glued some tiny pieces of ply to the corner of each window on the back of the shelf. It worked! This was on the day of the pop up show install, so I raced back to assemble the shelf in my exhibition space.