Artist Statement for At The Circus

Artist: Susanah Windrum

Title: At The Circus

Medium: Metal Collage Quadtych

Materials: Post-Consumer Metal Tins, Metal Bottle Caps, Metal Rivets, Wood, Acrylic Paint

Artist Statement:

As a young girl, my parents took me to art galleries to show me Pop-Art Exhibitions. I remember being intrigued looking at a cupboard made from scraps of wood that opened to reveal a pop can, set on a pedestal, like an altar. That pop can meant something, it was important; it wasn’t just a piece of trash. As a child, I might not have seen the message the artist intended but what I saw was that a pop can was more than disposable. That artwork made me look at things differently.

I love the process of making something fresh and exciting out of materials that otherwise might just be cast off. Working with found and recycled metal is a stimulating challenge as you must craft your vision with the resources you have collected. In a throw-away society, it is very satisfying to work with post-consumer metals and create art that has historical reference and is at the same time new.

Created from images and pieces of thirteen different tins and thirty-four bottle caps, At The Circus, layers images, text, pattern and colour to invoke the excitement and animation of the circus. Like the activity at the circus there are many elements competing for your attention. The materials are mundane and commonplace until they are juxtaposed to each other creating tension and movement and hopefully allowing you to see them differently.