Eva Ennist

This new series of mixed media sculptures has developed through a travel-inspired exploration of industrial materials such as concrete and wire mesh as well as organic fibres – specifically bamboo, reed and hand-made paper pulp. The various contrasts and similarities in these elements reflect influences from my most recent travels to South East Asia. The architecture of bird nests and the architecture of Hindu and Buddhist temples, along with the shapes and textures of certain plants, are expressed in a variety of individual pieces that can be considered ‘family members’. As in any family, these pieces can either stand alone or stack, nest together or support each other. The dualities of heavy and light, dense and open, natural and man-made that are inherent in these materials have also been a compelling motivator in the development of this new work.

In many of the pieces these materials have been manipulated with typical textile construction techniques like coiling or plaiting – but rarely with a typical approach. Cut strips of wire ‘hardware cloth’ have been shaped into irregular conical forms of various sizes that sometimes act as shelters for the similarly constructed bamboo shapes that nest within. Handmade paper pulp has been used to create a surface skin on some of these forms or used as a hanging structure that relies on other pieces for support. In one sense, the sprouting reed or wire surfaces of the concrete pieces contradict the material they are growing from but yet somehow still feel related – in a curious way.