Scott Elk
Absence Metastructure, 2020
Oil on canvas
152cm x 235cm

This painting came from observations of a ceramic sculpture I made. I wanted to paint the ring shapes in fleshy colours to give the suggestion of human form. A soundscape exploring the same themes was made to accompany this work.

Absence Metastructure

This Metastructure series is a precursor to my Desire Lines, and share many visual characteristics. My art I like to think of as a series or doors I walk through to get to the next artwork.

The series is about the moment of creation, the movement from concept to physical object. Its shapes come from within, the absence is the hole it leaves. 

Starting life as a project entitled ‘All The Places I’ve Lived’, 2020, I mapped the floor plan of each house I lived, then made them as panels I connected with wire. This was my first metastructure; a structure that describes another structure. I was intrigued by the concept in basic terms of events along a timeline, so I made the second metastructure in clay, and more abstract, as a series of hollowed out discs which represented loss. I then used the ceramic sculpture as the basis for loose observational paintings, as seen here in my painting which draws upon flesh tones to give the composition a human feel.