Caroline Dalton

Contemporary Artist - Materials, an investigation, journey or conundrum

My Exhibition Piece

Take a set of low-grade disposable things or trivialities, ones which sit within a very specific system [the game] and cast these arcade prizes anew as thin brittle-like hollows or inversions [ghosts] and in a compound totally opposing their original (formerly plastics or paper). See them again, but cast anew into a material which sits within a dialogue of dust and observe what occurs in transformation or affect?

Then watch these objects returned back to the arcade machine in finality and back into the system of the game, where they begin to assume a very specific framework of understanding and where a sense of human-ness prevails; of everyday interactions and behaviours, and of a repetition/reward habitualness in both lure and dependency, where these gaming things motion more fully towards tensions of risk, control, play or enticements and a reckoning of what really constitutes reward or prize. Now the material, sitting as a collective, forms as something much more lingering; looking like a sort of mineral bedrock or floor of dust, fragments and detritus amalgam in mutability, and they are entirely futile.

Problematic now, they are contradictory, and are ready to shatter or break away from any cultural sensibilities towards ‘delights’ or the given prize in return.

The work presented for this exhibition invites a viewing audience to engage in this body of research of Materials, one which has spanned the last 6 to 7 months and unravels some of the journeys taking place, – exploring not only the material per se, it’s many forms, modulations and variabilities or paradoxes, but also the work is seen through the eyes of the artist [participant observer] who in turn and in getting to know this material along with its trickiness, travels a similar journey in correspondence, noting intuitions, acquisition of skills, a fluidity of interaction and a growing understanding of the cadences/character of this material.

These things seen now or re-born, are watched in togetherness, in likenesses and similitude and in the connections they form a new, but, equally, they seem hard to pin down as blanks, objects/entities or shifting declines (disintegrations), where they cling on to the memory of their former selves as the cultural objects they once were, or do they?

And more importantly, what are they telling us now?

Art Medium of Preference

You can't ask me that... Where would I begin?

Why I Did a Master's Degree

Looking back at my decision to study this Masters’ degree, I’ve understood quite clearly my reasons for going back to university, which were driven by a desire not so much to gain a qualification, but a desire to truly understand 'method and practice' within the discipline of Contemporary Fine Art.

The course is academic and challenging and the best thing has undoubtedly been the input from the tutors (amazing professionals and artist-researchers in their own right) and the support and dedication they have shown us over the Covid-19 lockdown period has been remarkable. Equally, peer-driven learning and peer support have been a constant encouragement throughout the course.