Processing inspiration: visual elements in a wonder-based practice

This exegesis – written to accompany a body of studio-based research – explores my process of collecting gestalt sights and found objects through travel, and the transposition of these inspirations and items into sculpture. In tracing this process – from the initial encounter to the finished work – the findings of my report suggest that my art revolves around the idea of locating wonder in the properties of spaces, materials, and ideas. Travel offers a nexus of the imagined and the plan (itinerary), as well as the realities of ‘being there’ that are not invented and cannot be preconceived. My exegesis conceives the ‘structure’ of travel in terms of ‘the plan/ the project/ the intention’, and the incidental elements of travel in terms of ‘a meta-plan of memory’ (a surface, a volume or a flexing template for holding disparate impressions). These elements of travel are used in my exegesis to reflect on my creative process. Like travel, my process begins with ‘I am going to do something’. The process then combusts or reorientates due to encounters that elicit wonder which in turn elicit the impulse in me to play and to improvise. Could wonder, the ‘found object’ and the project, be reconciled in an artistic practice? The exegesis engages with the art practices of Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman and Allan McCollum among others, and the writing of Georges Perec, Gaston Bachelard, Rosalind Krauss, Edward Said and Walter Benjamin.