Perma

Perma White Perma hand cut outs

Perma

There is a certainty that the rejected and trapped flowers have once been flooded. 

It seems their excess has accumulated somewhere within a deep and dark hollow. Imagine how, devoid of light, with a little air to breathe, they shrink and condense. Dry, lighter than ever, they lay upon one another, unwittingly creating a porous net of layers and veins. In complete silence, they remain as one, within the shadows of their cavity. 

As they linger, the remaining breath between them becomes flooded with thick, dark matter. It hugs the flowers with its cold ubiquitous arms. The resin flow moves slowly through the porous web, sticking to the walls, imperfections and details. Its weight presses and divides the delicate tissue of petals and stalks. The movement is gradual but inevitable. As all remaining light is cut off, the flowing material solidifies, fossilising the blinded plants in a chance manner. They plunge into temporary obscurity. 

Once again, silence prevails. In order to compensate for the darkness they have been trapped within, the human hand begins to carve out the monolithic material. Fine, lengthwise cut returns the light by exposing the petrified flowers in their most fragile, anatomical detail. Bound by the resin, they have become a vein running through the layers of creation. Marble-like, painterly patterns emerge from the abundant, solid matter – surprising with an unexpected array of colour combinations and ornaments. Fully exposed, the cosmos of natural adornment unravels; petals, stems and buds unveil the anatomical arrangement of their shapes and properties. They now constitute the stone-like matter – a conscious material that emerged from the involuntary action.  

The initial gesture, the one that came long before the flood, is now projected on the reclaimed slabs. The hand-led machine repeats the gestural movement of the prehistoric line, shaping and taming the (in)submissive material. The meandering contour separates surfaces, finding the missing parts within. As separate elements, they lay flat like undiscovered planes of possibilities. Slits cut within suggest their journey doesn’t end there. For soon, they will collide and merge in order to rise up as one, monolithic entity. Its aesthetic will be determined by nature itself and will become a representation of the intricacy that only a flower’s architecture can achieve. Drawing on the familiarity of household furniture, the structural assemblage of planes creates an object that encompasses the uncertainty of gesture with a monumental confidence of a sculpture.

Available through Sarah Myerscough Gallery.