3D - glass

Death by Water

silk screened enamels, fused plate glass

2009

450mm x 300mm x 40mm

When creating the Sistine chapel ceiling (depicting the creation of the world and the fall and punishment of man) Michelangelo made many preparatory sketches. These were often fragments of figures - an arm or a hand, which he would use several times over.1 In this work sketches of Haman (the hanged man)were appropriated and redrawn into a complete upper torso. This image has been transferred from a silk screen to 5 layers of glass. Additional layers of glass were

inserted between these to create a 3 dimensional impression whereby the figure appears suspended in

water.

In this way the (crucified) hanged man in classical art becomes the drowned merchant in the T.S. Eliot Modernist poem "Waste Lands - Death by Water". There are a surprising number of parallels between the poem and the story of Haman including astrology, genocide, greed, the fate of man and outcomes of choices. T.S Eliot’s poem is described as the quintessential modernist poem expressing the moral horror at the massacre which was WW1. The artwork refers more specifically to section four of the poem "Death by Water". These few stanzas discuss the death of a merchant, in order to raise existentialist questions about his life choices and death. The work seeks to raise awareness in the contemporary viewer of both the general human responsibility for choices and their personal responsibility. Like Haman, who rejected God, and Phlebas, there is no afterlife alternative for Eliot or us.

This piece is a test for a larger work that is currently under construction. Watch this spot for the finished version which is a kinetic sculpture that simulates the action of the sea and literally floats the image of Phlebas before us.

1. Pierluigi De Vecchi, Michelangelo (London:Barrie & Jenkins 1992) 88,89.

Below is an extension of Death by Water. For this version I have not fused the images together. Rather I have left them to hang separately to give an impression of three dimensionality. In addition I have included a motor that creates a "swell" in the cloth hung in front of it. This in combination with a covering glass with a water pattern is designed to produce an impression of the sea. This visceral movement encourages the viewer to access physical memory in their experience of the work.