Introducing our lovely Editor-In-Chief, Freya !
L.A : When and why did you start doing sculpture?
F.M : “I’ve enjoyed art since early childhood, finding drawing and painting the best way to express myself. I’ve always loved the freedom which fine art gives you to experiment, and even from childhood projects I had an interest in clay and cloth. Sculpture only became important to me later, though, when I was studying A-Level Art.”
L.A : What is your art about, and is there a meaning in particular that you want it to have?
F.M : “My work over this period is all about home, and our place in the world. I grown up across several different countries and during this time in my life was living between a small mountain village in rural Spain, and Yorkshire. I wanted to represent the emotional landscape of what home meant to me at the time, combining the two places. In a way, all of my work from this period tackles that in some way.
My abstract sculptures are fictional landscapes. Reminiscent of clouds and designed to be hung, they are the forms of Spanish and Yorkshire landscape taken out of context. I used the basis of a chair and a table as philosophical signifiers of the everyday (the mundane facts of school and work and households which united my two homes) and on top of these I moulded chicken wire in the shapes taken from my photographs of Yorkshire and Spain. I hand-dyed the fabric strips, too, and if you look very closely all the shades of blue and green are just a little different! The first one I started off with was modelled on Dulux’s ‘Wellbeing’ paint, which seemed a lovely way to think of the significance of homes.
I also thought other sculptural ways to represent home – I did a series of drawings of a street I used to walk down every day to get to school as a child, and I projected this over a sculpture of the minimalist shapes in the drawing. For me, it was all about the interaction between different realities and ways of looking at the world around us. It was all about my own exploration of identity, where I’m from, where I belong…
What I really want for this body of artwork is that it speak to the viewer. They might not see the same thing in it as I do – they might not see the same places which I recognise, but they will see things which suggest ideas to them and take them on an imaginative walk.”
L.A : Where do you find your main inspirations?
F.M : “For this work, I found them in contemporary artists like Merike Estna, Karla Blak, Tacita Dean – but generally, I find inspiration in visiting galleries, reading all sorts of books – whether about art or philosophy! – and going on long walks exploring. Brighton beach in winter is one of my favourite places to sit and think…”
L.A : And finally, something that the entire Badger team has been wondering, where on earth do you find the time to produce art ?
F.M :“The answer is that I really don’t! I still sketch and write down conceptual ideas, but all of this big sculptural work is a bit older now… Hopefully I’ll get back to doing braver, more sculptural things again one day! These days, though, you’re more likely to find me on a short walk in the woodland behind Northfield taking photos of the landscape…”
