Nicola Siebert-Patel
“The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.”
Michel Foucault
God oh God
The idea behind this video was to show how much we reference religion in our everyday language. Even as a secular society, so much of the language we use references the word, God. Does it mean anything? It's just words. Do they hold any weight?
Not surprisingly there were many sources for this, from movies, tv, music, everyday conversations.
I plan to take this concept further with video image and sound.
Nicola Siebert-Patel, God oh God, 2020
“Although it may happen that people who always repeat the same thing actually believe what they say, inevitably their speech will be perceived as insincere - presumably even by themselves if they ever care to listen to themselves speak''.
Boris Groys
I recently began working with collage. Its a means of collating all of the themes I've been researching and can lead to interesting compositions.
Here I am taking a lighthearted, humorous approach to weighty topics such as life and death, religion, celebrity, meta magical thinking and the need to have something to believe in, without any evidence, or to create someone to believe in even if there is no truth or worthiness. I chose to use iconic imagery deliberately keeping the seams in this cut-out collage.
In the first image, Give me something to believe in, what appears to be a crucifix is, in reality, a telephone pole. There is a reference to celebrity culture, the blood of Christ, aliens, media and angels.
Robert Sapolsky, an American neuroendocrinologist and author. His talks often refer to the power of meta-magical thinking and the reasons why we create belief systems.
Nicola Siebert-Patel, Give me something to believe in, 2020
Grayson Perry, Vanity of small differences, 2016
Although different in nature and narrative, there is something reminiscent of Grayson Perry's tapestries to these collages. Where his narrative is about class, my narrative is about belief.
Giant Crucifix Necklace
Prior to lockdown, I was working on a giant crucifix necklace which I had been religiously painting, layering, sanding, painting sanding, smoothing to make as smooth as possible to be able to paint a marble effect onto. I was fortunate to have spent a day with Ana Kazaroff who is undertaking a fellowship at City and Guilds specialising in marbling. Ana was kind enough to share her knowledge with me on the process of layering paint to create the marble effect.
The concept for painting the wooden crucifix to look like marble is exploring what is real. The crucifix is too large to be worn as a necklace but will be hung on a chain with a clasp. Wood being the honest material being used, but marble being the appearance. Questioning weight, value and what we believe to be true. I am unable to complete this work due to the lockdown, so for now, this is on hold.
Scale is a repeated concept in my work. Altering scale poses many questions. Elizabeth Wright has presented a mixture of domestic and work environments, modelling the objects in unusual sizes, described as "a celebration of the versatility of human cognitive abilities."
For me there is humour to be found in altering scale. There is the question of why is the object bigger or smaller, what purpose does the object now serve, if any?
Elizabeth Wright, B.S.A. Tour of Britain Racer Enlarged to 135%, 1996–7
Lead was one of the earliest metals discovered by the human race and was in use by 3000 B.C.
Giant lead prayer beads
These beads have been a long term project. Through many attempts at fabrication, firstly casting the beads from a football which proved too large as I had to fill the mould with plaster for support, then having considered how they would be displayed, including the least number of beads required (ideally 108 beads but halving that number several times would work too, as long as the number was still a division of 108).
Adding to that the expense of what that size bead would equate to in bronze, this was clearly a beneficial exercise in learning and planning and when to let go.
I wasn't ready to walk away from the original concept of creating giant prayer beads, so adapted the size of the cast to a hockey/tennis ball size and decided to use lead rather than bronze. The lead would be a much more affordable metal and would also add to the metaphorical meaning by using a poisonous metal on prayer beads, intended to be touched whilst repeating mantras.
Richard Serra throwing molten lead.
An early pioneer of Process Art, Serra’s work emphasises the process over the end product.
The process of casting lead is a slow meticulous approach, each stage trusting that the progress onto the next stage will bring you closer to the end goal, of having a work to show. Constantly monitoring the situation and changing approach when needed requires skill and patience. Then the pouring, having to work quick with hot metal liquid, using precision in all the cumbersome gloves and protective gear. It's an exciting stage to be at with many possibilities for it all to go wrong. Then finally having an object to hold, sanding, filling/welding and finishing.
''the making is like meditation, every day do the work then work speaks for itself''.
Anish Kapoor
The beads have at times tested my patience, resilience and determination to see the project through. I am grateful I stuck with them and for all the skills I gained in my time in the Foundry. Welding, moulding, casting, pouring metal and having to adjust my budget and project accordingly.
The beads are all about the body, the absence and presence of the body. This is true for a lot of my subject matter. It is indeed all about the touching of the beads and the fact they are lead and you cannot touch them. They are too heavy to carry or wear, making them useless. I like this about them, and embodiment is very much a part of my thought process, and how belief systems use embodiment in different ways.
Here Damien Hirst is another example of using scale. He is currently working on making a chapel for the South of France. The spire is a huge bronze arm pointing to God. These are the fingers going for casting.
Hurst's giant fingers are reminiscent of my paintings Something to hold onto I and II. I painted two large canvases (124cm x 124cm) from small images of overexposed polaroid pictures of prayer beads being touched.
The paintings are 124cmx124cm canvases depicting hands holding prayer beads. I wanted to use scale, enlarging a small polaroid image to this size feeling like a giant like hands.
Damien Hirst, work in progress, Chapel in South of France
Nicola Siebert-Patel, Something to hold onto I
Nicola Siebert-Patel, Something to hold onto II
Giant pink mala beads
The thing I love about the mala beads is the weight they carry in meaning. These giant beads were fabricated from polystyrene and rope which I dyed with food colouring. The beads were then spray-painted with the brightest, pink I could find.
The pink polystyrene beads themselves have no meaning but the image can carry weight when placed inside an oil drum or hanging from a tree. The initial idea was to comment on aspects of the New Age ''spiritual competitiveness'' today.
Commenting on the appropriation of yoga from the West, how something originally designed for men only (and even only religious men), has now been overtaken by western women and turned into a commodity. I identify as part of the yoga community myself, having taught as a yoga teacher for years prior to my MFA, I am wanting to bring humour and a sense of irony to the topic.
Nicola Siebert-Patel, Giant Pink Mala Beads, 2019
Sphinx is a sculpture by Marc Quinn of the model Kate Moss in a yoga position. The life-size sculpture is made of cast bronze, with a white-painted finish, and shows Moss wearing a leotard with her feet and hands behind her head.
Marc Quinn,Sphinx, 2006
Ram
An object repeated in my work has been the Ram skull. In many ancient societies, the ram skull is very symbolic of initiative, action, leadership and determination.
For the Crypt exhibition, being part of the Dogma 19 group, where all members chose to work with one material, in this instance we chose cement.
I made a cast from a cardboard box, symbolic of modern-day consumerism. The final piece was a block of cement made up of layers, with Ram's horns sticking out the top, buried in the cement. The cement was covered in (imitation) gold leaf. Again the materials being important. The cement being a cheap material, however, the volume of cement required for this small rectangle box was of far greater monetary value than the imitation gold leaf. There is something both humorous and sinister about Ram I feel.
Inspired by the Chapman brothers, I worked over an embroidery purchased from a charity shop, of a picturesque garden filled with flowers and tidy walkway, there is something that unsettles me about all the order and 'prettiness' of the garden, adding the ram's skull adds intrigue.
A cartoon face drawn by Jake and Dinos Chapman entitled Insult to Injury, which is drawn over etchings by Francisco de Goya.
Currently one of my favourite works by Stefan Bruggemann is OK. For this major installation, the frontage of a four-storey building in Folkestone’s Creative Quarter was gilded with gold leaf with the word ‘OK’ scrawled over it in black spray paint at large scale. The artwork, commissioned by local not-for-profit arts organisation HOP Projects for its headquarters, has been created during lockdown as a response to the current situation and is typical of Brüggemann’s often-ironic work.
Gold leaf, historically reserved for artworks intended to convey spiritual or indeed economic power, is used as a canvas for an unceremonious and immediate form of expression: graffiti. The word ‘OK’ is written using thick lashings of paint in a gestural process that leaves the excess dripping down in black lines from the letters. Protest movements frequently use public writing and graffiti to voice dissent, but that is undermined here with the use of a word that suggests indifference, acceptance or even positivity.
Stefan Bruggemann, OK
Child 2019
The idea for Child was one of those early hours of the morning sitting up wide awake as this image came to me. I had to realise the image to see if it worked and I bought a child's size buoyancy aid on eBay and fabricated the crucifix using the auspicious number 108 and calculating the crucifix measurements from that. These measurements create a child-sized structure which felt an appropriate reflection of the current refugee crisis and this work went on to be selected for Beyond Borders exhibition at Battersea Arts Centre.
I see Child as being a hybrid statement not only critiquing religion but also current socio-political status.
Ai Weiwei, Lifejackets, 2016
Nicola Siebert-Patel, Child, 2019
Piss Christ, a crucifix photographed submerged in a glass of urine. Andres Serrano said he did not intend his work to offend; indeed, when it was first displayed in galleries, no one protested. But in 1989, after Piss Christ was exhibited in Virginia, it attracted the attention of an outspoken pastor and, soon after, of Congress.
The uproar turned the work into one of the key fronts in the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s.
Andres Serrano, Piss Christ, 1987
Blood of Christ
Taking another object found in religion, Alter wine symbolising the blood of Christ, I wanted to use the auspicious number 108 again, using a number which has inherited meaning.
The prints were directly influenced by Warhol's Coke Bottles, but unlike his screen print, I used lino board, carving two stencils from which to print the exact number. Having to calculate exact measurements to fit the framed board of 108x108cm.
I found this work to be an overall success although along the way there were what could only be described as 'epic fails', like carving the positive image onto the board, thereby creating a negative print. To overcome this I had to first print onto acetate then take another print from the acetate to paper.
Questions arose for me about wanting to make my work too literal. It was still an idea that I wanted to take to completion, and I am pleased I did.
Blood of Christ, 2019 pictured with Chiara Pelgrin's The destructive power of religion
Andy Warhol, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962
Nicola Siebert-Patel, Blood of Christ, 2019
The significance of the number 108:
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Sanskrit alphabet has 54 letters. Each letter has a masculine (Shiva) and feminine (Shakti) energy 54 X 2 = 108
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There are said to be 108 earthly desires in mortals.
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It is said we have 108 feelings. 36 related to the past, 36 related to the present, and 36 related to the future.
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There are 12 constellations and 9 arc segments. There are 12 houses and 9 planets. 12 X 9 = 108
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The diameter of the sun is 108 times the earth.
108 stones from B&Q
I realised I could lighten the work by giving it a title of what it really is. I was wanting to take an object, in this case, 108 stones (from B&Q) and as stones are often associated with 'spirituality' or calm, meditation, I wanted to take stones with no 'spiritual' connection, and create the feeling of being spiritual.
Giving something with no meaning, meaning. Or depending on which way you look at it, stones being billions of years old, taken from the earth and repackaged as stones from B&Q with no 'spiritual' weight as such. The minerals in stone came from the same liquid and gas minerals that formed the earth. I love the irony of B&Q taking ownership of the stones, stripping them of any heavy weight/meaning and then branding them as from B&Q.
The board measures 108x108cm and the painting was to reflect a landscape scene where Buddhists go on a journey, leaving out stones with messages painted on them for a safe journey.
I had been looking at Anselm Keifer's work at the time, appreciating the way in which he incorporates materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac.
Keifer's themes also interest me as he deals with spiritual concepts along with the history of the Holocaust.
Anselm Keifer, Shevirath Ha Kelim 2009
Samsara
I had been wanting to get into metalwork but with no concept of what to make.
Samsara was my first attempt at welding where I felt these figures didn't stand too well by themselves, I did like the shadows they created and decided to transform them into video. I was wanting to create the feeling of these stick figure characters who are only able to see what is right in front of them, referencing the Buddhist and Hindu belief of Samsara, how we keep repeating the same mistakes in life till we learn from them and can move on. Ironically, I felt I needed to move on as it didn't quite achieve the feeling I was going for and felt rather comical.
I experienced a particular 'light-bulb moment discovering the writing of James Elkins, in this case, 'The Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art'.
Nicola Siebert-Patel, Samsara 2019
Mona Hatoum expertly plays with light and shadow in her harrowing Light Sentence
Mona Hatoum, Light Sentence
''When a person disappears, everything becomes impregnated with that person's presence. Every single object as well as every space becomes a reminder of absence, as if absence were more important than presence.''
A further list of artists I have been studying recently:
Florian Roithmayr: Work looks to register the consequences of one surface or material yielding another through capturing the unexpected gestures that occur in the gap between mould and cast.
Mark Wallinger: Intelligent and influential artworks around ideas of power, authority, artifice and illusion.
Douglas Gordon: Working across mediums and disciplines, Douglas Gordon investigates moral and ethical questions, mental and physical states, as well as collective memory and selfhood.
'If you want to find the truth in something, take it apart piece by piece, then put it back together with the detail of a forensic scientist.''
Mike Kelly: His arrangement of found objects and collage have a sinister edge to them which I appreciate.
Olaf Eliasson: The Weather Project being my favourite installation in the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern.
John Baldessari: His use of appropriated imagery.
''It's human desire to be understood. And we always feel we're not understood. I go back and forth between wanting to be abundantly simple and maddeningly complex.''
Learning outcomes/skills realised
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I have discovered what kind of worker I am, I like to learn by doing, trial and error and research.
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I recognise the value of humour
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I take constructive criticism on board and learn from it
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I can commit to projects but stay open-minded to change. some things I will stick with but can easily let go and try a new approach.
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I 'cemented' my place in metalwork and developed many new skills in the Foundry, woodwork, printing and video editing.