IAN WIECZOREK - Visual Artist
Insula
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Insula
mixed media sculpture based on a peat briquette and blue baling plastic, with model cottage and tree
60x45cm 2010
Insula is a sculpture based on the notion of Ireland as an island, created from materials with distinctly Irish connotations: peat briquette, silage plastic, traditional cottage... The work interrogates notions of isolation, insularity, self-containment, and identity: allusions to an idealised 'heritage' notion of Ireland that still exists both in Irish Tourism brochures and as a persisting preconception embodied in the 'Emerald Isle' geography of The Quiet Man. The peat briquette again associates directly with the ubiquitous turf that has been used for centuries as fuel, but which is now being phased out through European directives. The briquette is processed, industrialised, and also referencesthe bricks/building materials used as a mainstay of employment for generations of Irish emigrants, as well as during the Celtic Tiger boom years here. The non-biodegradable blue silage plastic connects with both modern agriculture methods and the burgeoning problems of waste disposal, landfill and incinerators.
What presents as a naïve, idealised whimsy, is undercut by a raft of associative factors, presenting a more complex and introspective vision of contemporary, post-boom Ireland.
- Ian Wieczorek
(text, 2010)
