ring project

Through this project my understanding of ornamentation changed and developed quite dramatically. In conjunction my theoretical exploration my eyes were opened to different aspects of the ornament as an object and a concept.

Through this process, I began to look more at my physical surroundings and strive to understand what I am was seeing and what these visual stimuli provoked.

With my first series for the project I didn’t want to simply replicate or rework things that appealed to me visually, but I wanted to explore the relationships between what I was drawn to and inspired by and how this image translated into an object, and then how this object effected the environment it was put in (the body) and how the body, as a result, reacted.

My choice to draw on the lines and angles of poles and handles on public transport stemmed from my simple enjoyment of such objects. My inspiration came when spending copious amounts of time on the London tube. It is arguable whether such structural, functional objects actually behave as ornamentation, but through the medium of photography I was able to translate how I percieved them in this way. I was struck by how through these initial photographs, the poles become interesting lines; with a shiny, tactile appeal. They act as dividers, but also as complex structural components of the images, and their interesting lines are more distinctive against the busy background. I enjoyed how the photographs fully capture the nature which initially drew me to the object.

The poles are used functionally for stability and balance and are fundamentally built and designed to be held by the hand. 

This led me to develop the series of rings. I designed the rings with the intention of referencing the shiny, tactile nature of the poles and also the shape. The different designs, however, came about as an exploration of the relationship between the hand and the object. The different rings when placed on the hand, encourage the hand to behave in different ways, different for each wearer, creating a relationship between the wearer and the object. This challenges the rational understanding of the pole of something that one would hold, by making it hold the wearers hand.

Through the following photographs, one can see how the rings sit differently on the hands and how the hands behave as a result. 

I am fairly pleased with how this series turned out. In presenting the works, I chose to exhibit them alongside the original photographs, in order to give a better potential understanding of the concept. I enjoy how the rings limit the hand’s actions of the wearer. The resulting pieces are fairly minimal in their appearance, but have a pleasing aesthetic which I feel reflects the inspiration.