Body of Work

"Body of Work is a statement of how I make."
The works in Rickard's current series are made from solid plaster that has been cast into large blocks, each weighing close to ninety kilos. Rickard sees the process of casting the plaster as making pieces of space. Although at first they look impenetrable, she intends for these spaces to be moved through, to offer far more resistance than the ordinary air-filled space we move through every day.
Making spaces from plaster is the first stage for Rickard. Moving through them is the second. She begins by building up two areas of plaster, by placing and stacking blocks, leaving a small gap in between them where her body will go. She cuts pieces of sandpaper to fit over parts of her body, and glues them to her coveralls. Rickard then steps into the gap between the plaster and performs one movement, over and over, sanding the parts of the plaster that press against her body. When she has finished there are deep grooves in the blocks where she has moved through it. "The plaster holds a memory of my movement."
Through her exhaustive and intimate performative actions Rickard fixes moments in time, registering her actions in plaster thereby making them tangible. The actual weightiness of the objects themselves also reinforces how physically demanding the process is. Apart from being very elegant works, what is presented in the gallery is a very direct record, or the residue of, an intimate lived experience.
Each work takes close to three months to make, and Rickard moves inside the plaster for four or five hours a day, five days a week.
Born in Lithgow, NSW in 1981, Lucienne Rickard relocated with her family to Queensland in 1990. She graduated from the Queensland College of Art, Gold Coast Campus, in 2001 with a BVA in Fine Arts, then moved to Hobart in 2002 and commenced an honours degree at the School of Art. She received first class honours and remained in Hobart to commence postgraduate studies, receiving a Research Higher Degrees Scholarship from the University of Tasmania. She is currently pursuing her Phd, and is due to graduate in ealy 2006.
- address
-
Inflight Elizabeth Street
237 Elizabeth St, Hobart TAS 7000 - artists
- Lucienne Rickard
