I have been so inspired by Bart Hess recently, especially his work with wax. The wax garments that he constructed shout concepts like constriction, limitation and restraint. The breaking of the wax is almost like an incredibly important moment of freedom - breaking out. The wax clings to the skin but only as long as the skin will let it, breaking and cracking the moment the model moves. This is really compelling for my project.
I tested this on a much smaller scale by melting a candle in some hot water on the hob (see below). I poured the wax into a cup of cold water and submerged my fingers into it, continuing to pour the wax. The water ensures that you don't burn yourself on the wax and also lets the wax create wonderful frilled patterns while it sets. See results below.
I absolutely love the aesthetic effect that this process creates. However there are a few issues:
Practicalities:
I had to heat this up at home, which was messy and time consuming. I wouldn't be able to melt this wax at uni in the studios because there are no heat sources, and if I do it at home the wax will set before I can get to the studios to apply it. Potentially, I could apply the wax to the model at home but the set wax was very delicate and I think that it would crack or crumble on the journey to the studio. The fact that I can't do this on a large scale (not having a tank of water big enough to hold anything larger than a few fingers) means that visual focus would have to be ON those few fingers or it won't be effective.
UPDATE
After a discussion about this in a tutorial, my tutor has suggested using the microwaves at uni. I will need to test this to ensure the wax is suitable for microwaving.
