Alan Gavin
Contemporary Art Practice, Leeds Metropolitan University
'Realising the importance of sleep, dreams and crushed cotton' - Sculpture
Select sculptural works from an installation based around ideas of sleep, dreams and the ritual of waking up in the morning; they are the habitat in which I find myself in after a weekend of few winks, in limbo, on one side I have the day, the cold, the routine, the process and on the other I have the nest, the warm, the cosy and the comfortable. As I drift and wander through landscapes of crushed cotton, the only thing that could go wrong would be if I were to completely regain consciousness and realize my surroundings in entirety. I don’t mind what I wear on a Monday morning I’d rather wear my bed. I will be taking select works from an installation I have in the making called ‘realising the importance of sleep dreams and crushed cotton’ all the aspects of the piece relate to ideas of not wanting to wake up in the morning and the thought process that comes with it. In terms of the exhibitions intent, I feel this closely relates to the Manchester rave culture and the hacienda days as it’s a feeling they all will have come across and experienced on a Monday morning. For the first exhibition I will be submitting a series of photographs and for the second, a more sculptural piece.
I create works of the surreal and the strange, often using day-to-day experiences as a form of narrative in my work, piecing together moments in life, that day or even second, that have interested me in some way and inspired me to think creatively. I attempt to translate these thoughts, ideas and concepts through installations that contain a variety of mediums including projected video and sculpture from found objects.