all works © Lisa Peachey 2015
One breath caught in glass and held
by 20 fathoms of oak
2010
< >
60cm x 40cm x 10cm approx
Blown glass and oak veneer, french polished on shelf bracket
This work was made in response to an exhibition invitation on the theme ‘Shelf’.
‘One breath…’ places the relationship between the artist and production at centre stage. One breath was expelled into molten glass and suspended in leaves of oak veneer cut to the length of Lisa’s outstretched arms.
Two things were influential in the making of this work – Michael Craig-Martin’s ‘Oak Tree’, and the Princess and the Pea.
In an interview, Craig-Martin talks about the specificity of the glass on the shelf - that it is not just an oak tree, in a generic or platonic way, it is a specific oak tree, which as a liquid, will be different in different environments. The blown glass in this work is reminiscent of the water in the glass, but is now internalised vapour from the body of the artist, held in layers of oak joining to envelope it. The interior leaf of veneer is french polished, so the glass reflects in the oak. The Princess and the Pea gave rise to the many layers, that signified the ‘real’.
