Lonny
VOID Part 2
The Heaviness of Void
My second approach to the theme of void focuses on the absence itself and is thereby closely connected to the ideas behind Rachel Whiteread’s work.
Rachel Whiteread shows a void by filling cavities. Her negative molds show spaces by the simple act of turning the invisible into something visible.
The power of the emptiness, visible in massive concrete, overwhelms you and points out your position towards it.
Since I engaged with jewelry I have been focusing on small objects which have a close relation to the body.
I started out by using an already existing jewel, one that is related to a specific person. My first choice was the wedding ring since no other jewel is connected so closely to one particular person. In my project the person who was wearing the ring in former times is not there anymore.
I proceeded by casting the inside of wedding rings.
The cylinder I achieved that way I put on top of a ring to give it the prominent place usually only a precious stone would get. Little details of the former ring like stamps that determine the metal, the place and year of origin as well as the engraver and goldsmith, are visible on the cast surface of the cylinder.
By showing the inside of the ring, i.e. the hole usually filled by a finger, the void, the absence of that one particular person, is clearly present at the same moment.
In my next approach I chose another object with a direct relation to the body, an everyday object that is used by everyone, the spoon.
As a universal eating tool, the spoon is strongly connected to the body, it is used in all cultures and is modeled like a cupped hand.
I cast the bowl of the spoon in aluminum that was covered with an anodized layer afterwards.
The result is a series of black pendants.
The pendants, due to their color and size, are reminiscent of heavy amulets. Depending on the initial shape of the spoons, however, some of them also resemble drops or tears. The anodized layer bears white spots that make you think of the stars in the night sky, the endless void above us.
Karin Seufert, November 2018
TIME
The Blue Hour
The blue hour describes the period in which the sun has already set, shortly after the golden hour, but also shortly before the sun rises. During this time, the light has a magical blue color.
Time is like emptiness; it cannot be represented directly. It has something subjective, is complex and changeable, it is intangible.
If you look at time from the perspective of repetition, the sky serves as orientation: the sun for the daily cycle, the moon for longer phases and the stars for spatial orientation and at the same time for longer periods of time.
Part of my work shows these celestial bodies: the sun appears as a flickering yellow circle, the moon in its changing phases and the stars appear in multifaceted shapes.
All representations are based on the circle as the basic form.
By being able to measure time using the celestial bodies, a framework was created that gave the whole thing regularity, the calendar.
The day brooches represent periods of time and depict the different phases of life as a gradually unfolding process.
At the beginning, four colored dots appear in a white rectangle, each in its own position. Over time, the dots approach each other, grow, merge, rotate, cross the frame, mix and develop increasing complexity. The circle forms the basis of this process and at the same time symbolizes an endless cycle of playing, developing, learning, building and reflecting. The initially small, manageable and orderly events become increasingly complex, interwoven and overlapping, reflecting both the play and the dynamics of life.
Time as a process.
Karin Seufert, Berlin 10/2024
Spaces – the form of VOID
”What are the properties of a void? What defines and creates a void? How to define emptiness? And is an empty space automatically a void? It is these questions that make up the theme I am working on.
If you consider a void a space then it has a close connection to architecture.
The pendants, one of the results of my research, are hollow shapes that might guide one’s associations to rooms, buildings, roofs or to parts of architecture in general.
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With their fragile walls they create voids. ”
Karin Seufert
VOID Part 1
Jewelry and space/Architecture
In order to define a space, however, you need some kind of boundary. The way I have chosen to display this boundary originates from my earlier series “Stones” and “Covers” in which I also built up a construction of PVC dots around a core.
With regard to the voids I likewise work with a core that I shape from styrofoam. Around this core I then raise walls of PVC dots. After the construction of the walls the core is removed and thus turns into a void itself. The core makes room for emptiness.
The forms that are created this way refer to architecture. The perspective can vary. The only specifications are the boundary that makes the emptiness visible as well as a sense of space with reference to architecture.
The buildings of the Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) with their complex and dynamically curved linearity serve as an inspiration for my form-finding process. Her buildings are independent objects, which appear to me like large shells or huge jewels on the body of the earth. To think about void space in her buildings seems abstract, but it is fascinating to imagine their inside as hollow and deprived of any function.
My jewels developed by means of this process could refer to many kinds of spaces or architectonic fragments: to high towers, showcases, flat tent constructions, to roofs, chimneys, silos etc.
What is visible are the walls of these spaces with their structures reminding one of bricks or mosaics as well as of shed animal skins with fish scales or swirls, of leaf structures or similar geometrically built up patterns, which repeat themselves.
It is the skin of the space, the boundary, which makes the emptiness visible and carefully clasps it.
The voids are located inside these skins, partially turned outward, partially hidden on the inside.
Karin Seufert, November 2018
VOID Part 2
The Heaviness of Void
My second approach to the theme of void focuses on the absence itself and is thereby closely connected to the ideas behind Rachel Whiteread’s work.
Rachel Whiteread shows a void by filling cavities. Her negative molds show spaces by the simple act of turning the invisible into something visible.
The power of the emptiness, visible in massive concrete, overwhelms you and points out your position towards it.
Since I engaged with jewelry I have been focusing on small objects which have a close relation to the body.
I started out by using an already existing jewel, one that is related to a specific person. My first choice was the wedding ring since no other jewel is connected so closely to one particular person. In my project the person who was wearing the ring in former times is not there anymore.
I proceeded by casting the inside of wedding rings.
The cylinder I achieved that way I put on top of a ring to give it the prominent place usually only a precious stone would get. Little details of the former ring like stamps that determine the metal, the place and year of origin as well as the engraver and goldsmith, are visible on the cast surface of the cylinder.
By showing the inside of the ring, i.e. the hole usually filled by a finger, the void, the absence of that one particular person, is clearly present at the same moment.
In my next approach I chose another object with a direct relation to the body, an everyday object that is used by everyone, the spoon.
As a universal eating tool, the spoon is strongly connected to the body, it is used in all cultures and is modeled like a cupped hand.
I cast the bowl of the spoon in aluminum that was covered with an anodized layer afterwards.
The result is a series of black pendants.
The pendants, due to their color and size, are reminiscent of heavy amulets. Depending on the initial shape of the spoons, however, some of them also resemble drops or tears. The anodized layer bears white spots that make you think of the stars in the night sky, the endless void above us.
Karin Seufert, November 2018
VOID Part 3
The Plenty of Void
My third approach to the theme of void followed the second one by using the same starting point, the `spoon´.
Aside from that I had the opportunity to work with porcelain for 3 months, which influenced me and allowed me to try out this new material.
In contrast to the dark and solid pendants made of cast aluminum, the results were bright, hollow-worked and therefore light brooches.
Geometric soft shapes such as circles, oval or rounded triangles are covered with clear, strong colors. Contours are still recognizable, but the volume is already lost in the intensity of the monochrome structure and the respective color. The architypes shown here create a graphically reduced series due to the variety of possible combinations between shape and color. The origins of the shapes are, like mentioned above, various spoon shells, the cavity that makes up the ladle of a spoon.
By imprinting this empty space, you get the negative form of the shell, cast in porcelain and then covered with a colored glaze. The result is an own formal language: a chromatic geometric alphabet.
Each object carries a message, is like a code that gets something symbolic through the reduction. The initial emptiness becomes an abundance consisting of shape and color.
Karin Seufert, April 2021