Natasha Pike
Tropism
4 October to 21 December 2024

Studio open to the public on Wednesday and Thursday

I intend to use the studio at Uillinn as a test-site for reassessing how to bring the practice-led project, Tropism, into the public realm. Tropism features commissioned essays from a range of scientific, academic and creative disciplines presented as a parallel set of investigations alongside my visual art practice. I will make painting and installation based works on site, while building the project towards publication and exhibition.

Tropism features commissioned essays from scientific, academic and creative disciplines, extracts from literature and non-fiction writing, images of my studio work and site specific installations together with my own writing. The term tropism is defined as the biological response of an organism to an external stimulus, and here it is used as a conceptual basis to explore relationship with and response to matter. Tropism propositions a platform of equanimity between theoretical or analytical writing and visual language, setting up a slippage between the function of text and image.

At this point, I want to clarify the way in which my studio and written work and the commissioned essays for Tropism operate in relation to each other as producers of different registers of knowledge and as such to examine the context of this project more deeply. More specifically, it is my intention to advocate for a coherency between theoretical texts and artistic ‘making’ as research, using the studio to explore the oscillation between language and the language of material.

I aim to activate the studio as an area of networking, research, making and installation, connecting object, text, painting and audience. An integral part of this process is to informally open up this body of work to the public. Inviting visits from local academic and artist peers, neighbouring studio artists and the wider Uillinn community to introduce external dialogue and inspire ideas for potential engagement opportunities.

Natasha Pike holds an MA in Art and Process from the Crawford College of Art and Design and a BA in Fine Art from Falmouth University. She has had solo exhibitions at Clonakilty Arts Centre, Lismore Castle Arts St Carthage Hall and Origin Gallery Dublin. She is a member of The Glitter Heap; an interdisciplinary 'Meitheall' rooted in organic growing and sustainable art practice.
The Tropism project started in 2021 with a Visual Arts Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland.

@natashapikeart

www.natashapike.com

WCAC acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Cork County Council in making these residencies possible.