Light installation commissioned for Cheriton Light Festival 2016 

Further developed commission for Nottingham Light Night Feb 2017

Inspired by memories of a time when milk was delivered in bottles by milkmen from local dairies and was drunk by children in schoolyards to strengthen bones and teeth with calcium. But then the ‘milk snatcher’ took them away.....
Also referencing Lady Macbeth who feared her husband hadn't got the killer instinct because he was too full of the milk of human kindness....



'The Milk of Human Kindness'

In 'Stains' there is a reference to cathedral windows: the wiring could be barbed wire, or a crown of thorns. The woman is at the centre of the bed, at the intersection of religion, politics and sex.
This piece was made for my MA show in September 2015 where it was shown with its companion grass bed: heaven and earth, the exalted and the buried.
‘Stains’ was also exhibited in the Menier Gallery, Southwark in February 2016 and went on to win the 2016 Ashurst Emerging Sculptor Award.


Stains

4-sided glass ‘lightbox’ raised upon metal frame (see sketch) with internal light and etched text:

“they give birth astride of a grave,
 the light gleams an instant, 
then it's night once more.”

Samuel Beckett from 'Waiting for Godot' 

Life is short, go for the gleams


Gleam

Reclaimed materials and found objects used in my work include vintage furniture and ‘found sound’.
‘Voix Celeste’  is an organ stop consisting of either one or two ranks of pipes slightly out of tune. The term celeste refers to a rank of pipes detuned slightly to produce a beating effect when combined with a normally tuned rank. 
It also means ‘Heavenly Voice’: the installation consists of 6 vintage piano stools, customised using parts from a deconstructed Victorian organ. Each stool has sensors incorporated so that sitting on it will trigger sounds of nature and music related to birdsong. 
An uplifting sound for us all, we became more acutely aware of birdsong when everything else quietened down. Birdsong has featured in the work of composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Oliver Messiaen. All of these elements are included in this installation.


Voix Celestes

‘Confluence’

-The junction of two rivers, especially rivers of approximately equal width.
-An act or process of merging.

‘Confluence’ was a collaborative installation by artists Maureen Jordan and Caroline Bugby in September 2019, inspired by the beautiful 12th century St Mary’s church in Burham, Kent and by the recent archaeological project Finding Eanswythe.

St Eanswythe was the Anglo-Saxon, Kentish Royal Saint and granddaughter of Ethelbert, the first English king to convert to Christianity under Augustine. She is believed to have founded one of the earliest monastic communities in England (c.630AD) on the Bayle, the historic centre of Folkestone. One of the miracles attributed to the princess was that she made water ‘run up-hill’ from the Downs to the Bayle, thereby providing fresh water for the nunnery. 

It is the miracle of clean drinking water, and the recent archaeological excavation of the original watercourse, that the artists focused on in their work. Maureen used reclaimed glass in the form of pantiles and seaglass collected from the Folkestone coast, along with light and water to conjure a vision of St Eanswythe’s stream, incorporating features of the church, such as the ‘piscina’ and the traces of a set of steps in the wall, into this narrative. We later learned that the original steps had led to a wall opening where lepers would gather to receive a blessing from the priest, an early form of ‘social distancing’.

Caroline concentrated on the archaeological aspect of St Eanswythe’s story, making a series of three fragmented and crumbling ‘vessel’ forms that speak of the actions of containing and drinking water, exploring our connection to the past through this most essential resource. Lined with earth, they are both relic and archaeological dig conflated into one form. 

Throughout the installation, the materials used by the artists and the fabric of the church are transformed by association: glass transmuted into neon light, dark smudges of earth rippled across the tiles, mirrored surfaces drew features of the church into the work and sculptural forms referenced the colour and texture of the walls. 






Add

Maureen Jordan