self perpetuated interests of experimentation

"Hidden cove" - This cave like formation was created using fine powders that have a high absorbtion rate, (the same crystals used in babies diapers) slowly poured onto the ink design below to simulate the growing of a new habitat, key in the formation of life, all grown inside a humble petridish.

This image was created to lead up to "The hidden cove" as part of my growing a new world series, however its aestheticly pleasing formations made me feel the need to document it, the water in this image however is the key to growing this petri-dish world, as water is key in to our world too, we need water to thrive, the series needs water to become my visions, so I thought I might include it.

I decided that my two working projects could combine to take on a new form within my exploration of chemical formations using ferrofluids, water colour and the highly absorbant crystals, this piece is the result of that exploration "Chemical formation 384", I like the way the spires seem to grow from crystals with the clashing of texture, light and colour.

"Chemical formation 378" is a carry on from my ferrofluid series which stands somewhere between photography, sculpture and painting coming but a hairs whisker from incapsulating the many forms of art practise I have the priviledge of whitnessing everyday during my fine art course

"Chemical formation 355" is another carry on from my works exploring the use of ferrofluid in my practice, this image intrigues me as it highlights the thin film encapsulating the resevoirs of colour, claiming the water within for its own while seeming to fend off attackers. This seemingly strong structure standing out from its surroundings, is as fragile as any life form, its fleeting existance captured in a photograph before removing the magnetic field and letting it fall into a liquid mass of nothingness once more, the proud barriers and fortress it had set up, leaving nothing behind.

"Crystaline rock formation No. 14"

"Crystal Globe" the imagery here reminded me of our own world, stained black with oil and greed, formed through science the crystals here suck at the oil and water laid out for it until no more is left, the water then drys up to leave only a glimpse of its former beauty behind

"Chemical formation 324" I can't decide if this image reminds me of hills, forts or a small face but none the less its aesthetically pleasing form speaks to me a little

"Painted Distortion" this image came by accident after looking into the thin layer the fluid created on the surface of the petri-dish when not being manipulated by magnetism, the way the oil gave a reflection of that around it. I then went about manipulating the distortion using tiny magnets in different areas beneathe the dish similar to "chemical formation 324" however using smaller magnets and the aid of my camera to increase the distortion effect

"Crystaline formation No. 5"

multimedial manipulations

"Chemical formation 309" This formation conjurs imagery of alien lifeforms and my imagination leads me to believe it the spawn or egg of some alien creature or perhaps how a spot may look if it had landed itself upon an unlucky alien form, either way this formation holds some strange martian feeling to it.

"Chemical formation 305" The imagery here I have been told reminds some of rock formations upon our own planet but again seems to me like an alien formation, holding upon itself a beautiful aesthetic. The use of a varied ratio of pigment to water creating the thicker colours within the center yet the thinned yellow ink around its outskirts creating a beautiful contrast within itself. I am not sure why but this is one of my favourite formations.

"Chemical formation 295" the neutral earthen greens and large slimy black barriers appear to be trying to hide and protect the rich purples that almost feel like they are flowing beneathe the piece as if to only rear its head in areas it feels safe

"Chemical formation 301" I took a close up of this formation as I think it shows the segregation of colour within the piece the barriers between the neutral earthen green with its long shapes and the clean white sticking to simple sphere's of contrast, held together within the shiny black liquid. Its aesthetic qualities appear to jump out at you as the bright purple seems to try and mimic both colours being held in simple spheres alongside longer resevoirs of brighter futures.

experiments with colour

"Chemical Formation 283" this image makes me think of an alien style frog, the way it appears to be slimily moving forward, you expect it to leave a snail like trail behind as it approaches you, its thin film like skin holding its inner blue organs from slipping away while using some form of spiked deterent against predators running along its back.

"Chemical formation 268" is a simple formation that seems to have snake like formations within it, one particularly stands out cutting straight through the middle of the piece, the snaking lines weaving through the bold spherical droplets of colour held together by the thin slimy black cement. I particularly like the small heart-like formation in the bottom right of the image, this shape was actually intentional due to this piece being created on valentines day.

"Chemical formation 248" is a formation in which I tried to use a minimal amount of ferrofluid to create the small cones you see lying around the edge of the high rising walls that encompas the bold colours within. The single piece of segregated colour in the bottom right pulled away and kept from its fellows by the hard over-powering white colours cutting through the center holding it back from its family colours keeping it in a prison, giving it the choice of either trying to escape the world it knows, inside the black walls or never seeing its fellow colours again, then the bold orange in the dead center of the sculpture looking like a button or a heart, trying to squeeze past the white walls to its parent colour perhaps, although this is just my personal interpretation of the piece.

"Chemical formation 269" this image is another look at 268 from a new perspective to highlight the different sizes between the pools of colour and to create the feeling of a moving animal, creeping forward on its natural route alongside showing its defensive spikes.

"Chemical formation 250" is a formation that combats the images produced by "Chemical formation 248" as the power and segragation caused by the white pools have been over run by the suddenly large amounts of colour swamping the piece, the pools have become such a large amount that there are no spires left, only walls created by the ferrofluid, this experiment was primarily to see how much liquid the ferrofluids could hold under the power of the magnet.

"Chemical formation 267" similar to 268 & 269 from another perspective this image however does not highlight the snake like effects or the feeling of movement but instead shows the neutral coloured resevoirs and valentines heart with the feeling of gently becoming more agressively spiked towards the rear of the sculptural form.

"Chemical formation 249" is the same formation as in 248 however I have played with the lighting, angle and camera distance to warp our view of the structure and give it a more extra terrestrial feel

"Chemical formation 253" is a piece which incorporates a painted petri-dish rather than the usual transparent dish I have been using in most the other works, I used a earthen pallet for this as it is the basis board for the life-like formations I have been creating and highlights the ferrofluids dark tone while not distracting from the overall central formation. The black staining stemming from the formation however was due to the density of the oil used in ferrofluid that tends to stain all it touches, as there is a layer of paint the fluid disperesed itself where it could. I am not sure what to make of this image but the large selection of colours clashing with the shining black fluid and sweeping escape blasting from one side as if trying to wipe its own slate clean or as if there was an eruption from the sculpture causing the smoke like mark to appear.

"Other forces"

"Colour wheel" this image was one of my first explorations into aesthetics using ferrofluids and coloured ink. Using a circular magnet containing six smaller magnets of high strength placed incredibly close to the fluid, so close that the magnet and fluid are only seperated by the thin layer of plastic that is the petri-dish I use for my works, this stops the fluid forming the spires you will notice throughout the rest of my works and means that the ink injected into the fluid is almost pushed out of the areas being held by the excessive force yet is still held in place by thin layers of the fluid not under over-excessive pressure.

"Chemical formation 37" was an experiment with how light falls on the spires and capturing how the fluid reacts to the magnet without further fluids complicating the chemical formation and structure created by the ferrofluid, capturing the structure in its simplist aesthetic form

"Artistic eye No. 3" is a piece put together experimenting with heat, light (and subsiquently shadow), ferrofluid and inks. I noticed the clear eyeball like structure begin to form during my experiments and decided that with the right lights and shadow I could make the eyeball appear to gain eyelids and went about trying to make the eye seem to blink with a series I then named, the artistic eye due to its colourful iris and pupil.

"Artistic eye No. 2" this is another part of the artistic eye series part way through the blinking process except that the pupil seems to have not been fully formed yet and the iris appears to take on a more circular tie-dye effect unlike the bolder image of the eye in No. 3

"Chemical formation 48" is a piece where I was focusing more on the ferrofluid without the extra complications of introducing new liquids within the formations, however concentrating on the lighting I developed this image which reminds me of a photography dark room where, analogue images are developed into the final images we have grown accumstomed too, because of this to me the piece gains new meaning being a digital photograph pointing to its historic predecessor and the hard work that went into developing those images

"Chemical formation 83" is a piece that came from when i was cleaning the petri-dishes after experimenting with injecting the ferrofluid with colour while under the force of the magnetic field, I noticed that when I removed the magnetic field from the equation images began to form due to the speration of the oil from the ink and water however still leaving a very thin stain on the floor of the petri-dish. Noticing this I wanted illuminate the bubbles roaming through the dark black oil, so i set about playing with the light and distances and putting the fluids under magnetic forces then removing them and seeing what images came from this, producing images such as this one here that looks a bit like a ghost or Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc.

"Chemical formation 61" is the result of experimentation with distance and strength of the magnet from the petri-dish

"Chemical formation 90" is the result of trying to overload the fluid with ink which allows this lovely semi-transparrent effect containing small circular droplets of the ferrofluid, however i was finding it incredibly difficult to photograph the resulting designs left within the fluids and keeping the colours due to the reflective nature of the liquid alongside its need for a well lit area due its inherently dark colour, which is why I have used the bright colours of yellow and red to try and bring the colours and patterns forward, to catch the eye, this is also why I used the textured yellow bowl in this image rather than the usual petri-dish. I think that all these elements however add to the aesthetic qualities of the image.

"Chemical formation 91" being the same actual formation as c.f 90 I was trying to get a better image of the patterns created by the ink inside the ferrofluid but it appears to highlight just how reflective the fluid is alongside the fact that there is a film created around the inks not just walls created and held between the inks, that the ferrofluid actually locks the inks in place when under the stress of the magnetic field. It also shows the central image that to me appears to be a grinning face surrounded by an intricate pattern pushing the feeling of life that has often been a feeling throughout the works.

"Chemical formation 110" is steming from the work with the fluids after it has been removed from the force of the magnet, this particular piece is developing on the feeling of creating life within a petri-dish, the cultivation of life however small being the main use of the humble petri-dish. However I have taken this feeling of cultivation a step further and have tried to create my own miniture cosmos inside the petri-dish mimicing the images in the media of our universe with its swirling colourful galaxies in the darkened outerspace lit up by thousands of stars, the feeling of life without ever actually showing life within itself.

Who's to know one of these galactic clusters doesnt actually hold life?

Exploration of fluid movement

explorations into drugs and addiction