David Maisel : Library of Dust.

I was recently browsing through Tumblr searching the tag #rust and it took me to an image of a rusting old can. I was instantly drawn to this image not just because of the decay but because it was so unusual in colour and texture. Most of the time when to you come across some rust it is dull in colour, usually being brown or black but the colours in this image really caught my eye as they were so vibrant. Luckily the person who had reblogged the image had labelled it so I googled the artist name (David Maisel) and was taken to his website. I found that he was a photographer who's work investigates the idea of beauty and searches further for a deeper meaning to it. Other then the elegant and attractive side to beauty he explores the braking down and deterioration of an object to show that that too can be beautiful in it's own way.

     

I looked at his work entitled 'Library of Dust' and found it to be quite an interesting idea based on an unusual subject. The cans that I had been looking at were from this work and I discovered that Maisel had taken photographs in and old staterun psychiatric hospital. Inside the cans lie the remains of cremated patients of the hospital which have not been collected by the families of the patients. As the cans have been there for so long the ashes have reacted with the copper cans which is what has caused them the turn colour and rust and the corrosion at the seams. He also took photographs of the rooms around the mental institution. They too had been left untouched since it shut down in the 1970s so they are also full of decay and rust with detail like paint cracking off the wall. 

 This links in really well with what I have currently been looking at with my work as I am focusing around the decay in buildings and bridges. It has caused me to explore decay more and to want to try out some experiments with materials to see if I can create a texture and look of rust and decay. An idea is to maybe create different backgrounds that are quite messy or tactile and then to draw in some way on top of them or maybe cut shapes or designs out of them. I would also like to work directly on top of my photographs of Manchester and Salford Quays and see if I can display a look of ageing to them to symbolise the decay of buildings that I have found from my research.