The artwork is about the movement among graphite dust, olive oil, and the paper. Each material takes a metaphorical role in the process: dust as the moving elements of the earth ground; oil as the vehicle of the shifting terrain forced by gravity; paper as a frame capturing this movement in the space onto a platform.
I. Birth & Growth
Oil was poured over this artificial mountain of graphite dust, flowing over the paper like a river. By being held on both edges, the paper was set with a slope. The energy of gravity and the tension among materials got expressed through the changing profile of the black stream. The contract between the strokes of materials and the deteriorated blank spaces on the paper is a diagrammatic expression of the covering and the uncovered. As the black stream run to the bottom edge, another piece of paper, lying on the ground, caught all the drops of oil and dust from the first piece of terrain, creating the second piece of the artwork.
II. Settling
With time changing, the sediment got dried out and became more stable as a “landform”; however, the oil transferred from the stroke into the paper texture, creating a new kind of “wetness.” At this point, the paper was no longer only a frame of the territory, but part of the territory. As the floating graphite dust in the air traveled over this new habitat with the wind, they were attached to the wetness and created a darker area. Through this process, the energy and time aspects of the landscape were recorded along the banks of this black stream.
III. Nature & nature
Partials of the black stream in the large initial paper got recaptured and translated onto small pieces of paper by arranging blank papers over the initial piece and printing with manual pressure. Printed small pieces were paired later to show new images with the original material. In other words, those small pieces of terrains were copied and edited into another conversation. Being taken away from their original context, those semi-terrains of the same scale offered new perspectives. Realizing what we have engaged in nature with our eyes, hands, and brains is just parts of Nature, the question of “is nature natural?” has become my adventure scheme for designing and artmaking in following practices.