Information about this month’s exhibition from the artist Lydia Karwal.

Presented to you, as the viewer, is an installation created using a material that is versatile and is continuously used throughout the world, from aircraft to beverage containers. Its properties are unique, but what we understand it to be is what makes this piece all the more interesting.

Kitchen foil has been a chosen material used by the artist for many years, and it is through their main subject matter of space that the material is re-contextualised. While considering the philosophical concept of Phenomenology*, foil is the only material used in the work to express manipulation of physical spaces. To articulate different ideas of transforming space, the artist also works in photography, printmaking, installation and media based works.

These installations in The cornerHOUSE may suggest metaphorical and literal reflection with the viewers own perception of space and therefore, the response to this piece is widely ranged. The artist wants the viewers to capture their own experience while realising it is a shared experience. How the work translates from person to person is something of which the artist is intrigued about as an aspect of Phenomenology that the artist is experimenting with, is that space can transfer from physical to mental. To understand how we consciously and even unconsciously interpret space is by using our own knowledge and recognising that the foil is commonplace in a domestic kitchen space. However, the material is now misplaced, hence a new understanding must be realised. The main reason why foil is used is because the artist associates it with family and relationships, for example the foil essentially protects the effort made into a meal from the kitchen and ithas an ability to be aesthetically pleasing and repulsive in equal measures.

Currently, local artist Lydia Karwal is studying Fine Art at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham. If you would like to get in contact with her, please contact via email: lydiakarwal@yahoo.com.

*Phenomenology is officially defined in the Oxford dictionary as, 1. The science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being. 1.1 An approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the object of direct experience.