'The Cycle of Waves'
By displaying beauty through sculpturing aesthetics of clay, the chosen beauty of Japan’s culture was able to be represented. Forms and shapes have aided in expressing it.
The sculpture, “The cycle of waves”, was constructed using clay, clay carving equipment, skewers, miniature spatula, knife, sandpaper and water.
The line has been shaped to fine edges and rounded to resemble ideally a wave; it has the potential to resemble the sun rays (in the Japanese flag) or flower petals (modified cherry blossom), which presents the culture of Japan symbolically. The colour is non representative and plain since the sculpture represents many areas of nature. The neutral colour opens the mind to different perspectives of the artwork. The texture of the sculpture is a smoothed surface with small carved patterns into the clay that showcases the main topic, Japan’s values. A slight coloration to the stand for the sculpture were coloured greenish blue to influence the idea that the sculpture is nature based.
The shape is symbolic and abstract, representing various areas of culture. I have incorporated the techniques and styles inspired by Henry Moore by using the natural objects as the subject of the clay sculpture and round shapes. The round shapes were sculptured with soft pressure from a spatula and the hands. The inspiration came with the strong connection that Japan has with nature. This relates to a social issue as our connection with nature is being disconnected and destroyed. The emotions that were intended to be expressed in the sculpture were calmness, soothing and open the mind to different perspectives of the sculpture.
My goals as an artist were to take risks and try new areas of art, going out of my comfort zone. Sculpturing has helped me complete this goal because it allowed me to further explore a new topic. With this topic I learnt that that to smooth out clay, water would need to be applied to create a smoother and mouldable surface. The final outcome of the piece has fulfilled my expectations with smooth edges and the curves would loop back into a continuous cycle; there no end or starting point of the sculpture. My piece may influence my future piece to further explore different areas of nature and being able to express in different formats; realistic and abstract.
