Scott Elk
Desire Lines - Mark; He Used to Bring me Roses. After Voulkos, 2022
Stoneware ceramic on steel plinth
60cm x 60cm x 60cm

This work came from wanting to put my experience of a relationship into an energetic, moving form. I am exploring the figure in an abstracted way, using the vessel shape as a means of visual language from ceramic art history to give a sense of character. Including all the classic parts of a vessel relating to human form gives my vessel distinct personality; foot, body, shoulder, neck, lip. The title of this work is taken from the opening of the 1970’s Australian tv soap Prisoner Cell Block H. Days are counted as primal notches on a symbolic circle with no end. The use of green in the work is a reference to the rose vine that has withered. The form is fragmented, broken, unravelling, and spinning into nonexistence.

DETAIL:

Desire Lines

The majority of work produced in 2022 falls into my Desire Lines series of paintings, drawings, screenprints, and ceramics. The series is about relationship to place, connection to people, and the sometimes intoxicating, head-fucking connection of physical interaction.

A desire line, is a term often referred to in urban or transportation planning, as a path created as a consequence of human traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. It is the way taken by choice, by desire, and by necessity when following the heart. It is movement with intention.

In a real world practical application, the desire lines have the possibility to connect people resulting in events along a time line. I see people as these spinning vortexes of energy, in a positive sense like galaxies spinning and reaching out, and in contrast, negatively sucking everything towards themselves like black holes spinning. When two of these things collide, wondrous and unexpected things can happen; colours swirl, planets could be flung out of orbit, or set in a new orbit, momentarily or until the end of time. My interpretation of these desire lines is constantly searching to insert the human element of connection into fragmented, and abstracted forms.