The Spaces Between - an interview with Emily Meilleur
Continuing IAWN's coverage of Helfa Gelf's YMYL-2-EDGE, an exciting creative programme that involves fusing art and tech in exciting new ways, we are pleased to present the final in a series of interviews with the participants.
Emily Meilleur is an experimental art adventurer and botanist who also runs a community heritage orchard as part of her role as the Senior Biodiversity Officer for Gwynedd Council. Here she talks with Edge2 Curator, Remy Dean.
Hello, Emily, could you please briefly introduce your creative practice and describe your approach to making art?
My creative practice starts with thinking, looking and experimenting. I use paper, pens, photographs, video and found objects. I have been exploring the edges of lines, the boundary between one thing and another. Through harnessing natural forces, such as wind, a line between control and chaos can be made.
As an ecologist and botanist I have been studying the natural world, its complexity, connectivity and beauty. I approach art as a way of seeing and understanding the world, through interaction with people, materials and the environment. It is a playful investigation in which observation, drawing and physical interaction are a key element. I undertake little research, and often push materials to their destruction. My creations are constantly in a stage of becoming and can be viewed as a trace of a dialogue of discovery.
Was there a moment that you ‘woke up’ to being an artist?
I believe everybody is creative and I woke up to being an artist when I realised I needed to express myself and pursue my investigation of the world.
What creatives have inspire you and what have you learned from them?
My creative practice has been informed and influenced by artists and poets including Joseph Beuys, who said that everyone is an artist. My love of paper is from the poet Childe Roland. Like performance artist Marcus Coates and the surrealists, I seek to create a connection with the dream world and I admire Cornelia Parker’s ability to look at materials afresh and present them to us in a poetic, conceptual form.
Would you say that your involvement with EDGE-2-YMYL, through Helfa Gelf, has changed or extended your way of working?
Edge 2 has extended my way of working by using material such as plastic in new ways. The facilities at Arloesi Pontio Innovation's FabLAB have allowed me to transpose the lines made in a chaotic and free way into other media. This wouldn’t be possible without the technology available in FabLAB. The laser-cutter is able to follow the most intricate lines precisely, creating beautiful shapes with complex edges. Through being involved in the Edge 2 project I have met other artists and we have been able to share skills and the staff at FabLAB have assisted with their technological knowledge.
Can you describe a moment of revelation you experienced during the EDGE-2-YMYL project?
The equipment at FabLAB allowed me make objects out of the intangible - such as the spaces between rocks and shells from the edge of the sea.
What kind of work have you developed for the current exhibition at Pontio?
The edge of the sea, where the land and sea meet, is an interface of two different worlds and has a complex and fractal line, I have captured these by using sunlight and photoreactive paper. The lines are the boundaries between light and shadow where the two elements converge - earth and water. I have taken these lines and converted them into etchings, prints, cut-outs and sculpture and projection.
How did you address or respond to the EDGE-2-YMYL theme, "to address questions about the modern world and our human experience within it"?
In today’s modern world we can make images of anything, we can materialise 3D forms from our imaginations, but I think the most interesting is what is created between people and art, this interaction is creativity.
An exhibition of selected work produced during Helfa Gelf's YMYL-2-EDGE programme is currently showing, until Sunday 10 February 2019, in the Bocs Gwyn / White Box Innovation Space, Bangor. (11:00 – 17:00 Wednesday to Saturday inclusive, and 12:00 - 17:00 Sundays)
There will be a day of talks with the Edge2 participating Artists and Curator on 6 February 2019 and tickets can be booked HERE
More about Bangor University's Arloesi Pontio Innovation - fabLAB - HERE
You can read the YMYL-2-EDGE call-out and brief HERE
Helfa Gelf is now an annual event - an Arts Trail through North Wales during September that involves hundreds of artists, crafters - creatives of all kinds - in an exciting and varied festival of events. Many creatives open the doors of their studios to the public, presenting an opportunity to interact and share their creative practices. The open studios season is during September and is also preceded - and then followed by - a programme of exhibitions, workshops and courses for creative professionals, interested novices, and all those between. Helfa Gelf presents a unique opportunity to meet and chat with artists, makers and doers in their creative spaces, see them at work, perhaps have a go yourself, and see their finished work - which is often available to purchase at special 'trade prices' - ideal if you want to get some unique Yuletide shopping sorted ahead of the rush...
Find out more HERE
Emily Meilleur is an experimental art adventurer and botanist who also runs a community heritage orchard as part of her role as the Senior Biodiversity Officer for Gwynedd Council. Here she talks with Edge2 Curator, Remy Dean.
Hello, Emily, could you please briefly introduce your creative practice and describe your approach to making art?
My creative practice starts with thinking, looking and experimenting. I use paper, pens, photographs, video and found objects. I have been exploring the edges of lines, the boundary between one thing and another. Through harnessing natural forces, such as wind, a line between control and chaos can be made.
As an ecologist and botanist I have been studying the natural world, its complexity, connectivity and beauty. I approach art as a way of seeing and understanding the world, through interaction with people, materials and the environment. It is a playful investigation in which observation, drawing and physical interaction are a key element. I undertake little research, and often push materials to their destruction. My creations are constantly in a stage of becoming and can be viewed as a trace of a dialogue of discovery.
(all images courtesy of the artist)
Was there a moment that you ‘woke up’ to being an artist?
I believe everybody is creative and I woke up to being an artist when I realised I needed to express myself and pursue my investigation of the world.
What creatives have inspire you and what have you learned from them?
My creative practice has been informed and influenced by artists and poets including Joseph Beuys, who said that everyone is an artist. My love of paper is from the poet Childe Roland. Like performance artist Marcus Coates and the surrealists, I seek to create a connection with the dream world and I admire Cornelia Parker’s ability to look at materials afresh and present them to us in a poetic, conceptual form.
Would you say that your involvement with EDGE-2-YMYL, through Helfa Gelf, has changed or extended your way of working?
Edge 2 has extended my way of working by using material such as plastic in new ways. The facilities at Arloesi Pontio Innovation's FabLAB have allowed me to transpose the lines made in a chaotic and free way into other media. This wouldn’t be possible without the technology available in FabLAB. The laser-cutter is able to follow the most intricate lines precisely, creating beautiful shapes with complex edges. Through being involved in the Edge 2 project I have met other artists and we have been able to share skills and the staff at FabLAB have assisted with their technological knowledge.
Can you describe a moment of revelation you experienced during the EDGE-2-YMYL project?
The equipment at FabLAB allowed me make objects out of the intangible - such as the spaces between rocks and shells from the edge of the sea.
What kind of work have you developed for the current exhibition at Pontio?
The edge of the sea, where the land and sea meet, is an interface of two different worlds and has a complex and fractal line, I have captured these by using sunlight and photoreactive paper. The lines are the boundaries between light and shadow where the two elements converge - earth and water. I have taken these lines and converted them into etchings, prints, cut-outs and sculpture and projection.
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Emily Meilleur's interactive projection piece at Edge2 |
How did you address or respond to the EDGE-2-YMYL theme, "to address questions about the modern world and our human experience within it"?
In today’s modern world we can make images of anything, we can materialise 3D forms from our imaginations, but I think the most interesting is what is created between people and art, this interaction is creativity.
- Thank you Emily Meilleur!
There will be a day of talks with the Edge2 participating Artists and Curator on 6 February 2019 and tickets can be booked HERE
More about Bangor University's Arloesi Pontio Innovation - fabLAB - HERE
You can read the YMYL-2-EDGE call-out and brief HERE
Helfa Gelf is now an annual event - an Arts Trail through North Wales during September that involves hundreds of artists, crafters - creatives of all kinds - in an exciting and varied festival of events. Many creatives open the doors of their studios to the public, presenting an opportunity to interact and share their creative practices. The open studios season is during September and is also preceded - and then followed by - a programme of exhibitions, workshops and courses for creative professionals, interested novices, and all those between. Helfa Gelf presents a unique opportunity to meet and chat with artists, makers and doers in their creative spaces, see them at work, perhaps have a go yourself, and see their finished work - which is often available to purchase at special 'trade prices' - ideal if you want to get some unique Yuletide shopping sorted ahead of the rush...
Find out more HERE
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