Specimen Sample #79 Original by Melissa Procter
Sponge, aluminium foil, steel scouring pad, Modroc, emulsion paints, superglue.
Specimen Sample #79, is made from a combination of household items, such as a sponge, which I have then covered in Modroc and subsequently painted a delicious bright pink using domestic emulsion paint. The piece manages to maintain a precarious position where it appears simultaneously organic and synthetic, edible, and inedible, familiar, and otherworldly. It evokes several things all at once, and yet gives nothing away. Seductive and appealing with its tactile surface and viscous colour; yet also slightly alien and odd. Could this be a sample from the near future where the boundaries between natural and artificial have become so blurred, that this new hybrid matter exists?
Melissa Procter is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, collage, digital, and installation. Her practice is largely material led, with a focus on the use of items often considered mundane and ‘low’ in art terms, aiming to transform and liberate them from this usual function and, therefore, elevating them to the status of art objects. Through abstract assemblages, Procter explores a multifaceted personal identity, and examines the interconnectivity, ecology, duality, and ambiguity of seemingly disparate aspects of modern life.
www.instagram.com/melissaprocter_art
