Strata, Ice Chi, Ice Trumpets

Abstract

In each of six pieces, Garfoot experimented with different combinations of technique to emulate the richness of form, texture, glow, growth and decay found in corals, and other sea life. A former industry designer, Garfoot’s research seeks to extend and develop knowledge about conventional processes through the development of new relationships between divergent techniques, which in turn offers new potential for artistic expression. Garfoot is expert in a variety of processes and innovative combinations of processes, integrating glass-blowing and kiln-casting with centrifugal casting. Using these industrial processes, he has developed methods to subvert or ‘degrade’ them in order to produce semi-industrial individual pieces of artistic quality. This method of ‘degradation’ of industrial processes through manual intervention serves as a basis for, and analogy with Garfoot’s conceptual intention of portraying the subtle balance between the struggle for survival of the natural life of the undersea coral beds and the effect on them from human post industrial and material fallout which has resulted in the degradation of these natural life forms.