Victoria Ferrand-Scott is an artist who works in multiple media, including fine art, photography and video alongside sculpture.
Ferrand-Scott works extensively with what most would regard as ordinary, mundane materials – concrete and other mouldable, pourable building compounds. These are transformed into extraordinary, fluid, tactile forms using latex and flexible fabric structures. It is this juxtaposition of the unforgiving, hard concrete with the fluid, flexible latex that makes her work so exciting and interesting to observe.
The smooth surface of the latex and its ability to shape into sensual, organic curves challenges the usual perception of concrete as a cold, unforgiving, bland material. Asked about concrete most people would describe motorway bridges, grey 60’s flats, walls and other functional objects. Few would consider concrete as a medium for art. (In comparing the glamour of the ancient Greeks to the perceived-to-be boring Romans, it was often said ‘What can you expect of a culture that invented concrete?’).
It is interesting how our use of an object can so materially impact upon its perception and the challenge of changing that perception has been taken up by Ferrand-Scott who amply demonstrates that, by seeing beyond its reputation to the material itself, it can offer great opportunities for artistic works.
The bulging shapes in pieces such as Analogous Yielding and Drawn, beg to be touched. The constraints of the latex cause the concrete to swell against the elastic, smooth latex, bulging and twisting. They have an organic life about them and an almost alien quality.
Concretions reflects its origins as being poured into a latex/elastic skin. Snake and coiled spring on the other hand appears to be a departure from this format.
It will be interesting to take inspiration from this work and to see how it can be adapted to alternative combinations of materials.