Lois Carson

Born Hertfordshire, 1961. In 2003, Lois completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Gray’s School of Art Aberdeen, was artist in residence at Glenfiddich and received a fellowship from the Royal Scottish Academy to study in Florence. The materials she uses in her sculptures vary from the traditional stone or bronze, to a more contemporary medium such as Perspex and digitally generated images. The issues which underpin her work often evolve around the passage of time and how through image, subject and process, the presence of passing time may be sensed.

In her latest series, The Rowan Sculptures, capture sequential images of a Rowan tree blossoming that have been transferred to slices of Perspex and then assembled together into a cube. The final result manages to amalgamate the effects of time-lapse photography, holography and minimalist sculpture: a fragile explosion of form and colour suspended in space.

The fourth cube in the series, is a more literal representation of the Rowan tree. This sculpture is a metaphor for the still, dormant and cold of the Rowan tree in winter. "Rowans Red", "Rowans Green" and "Rowans White" represent what is there, where as “Rowan’s Blue” implies the notion of the tree without its coat of foliage, dormant and still. But ironically, although we as the viewer are able to see the tree, it’s not actually there. As the tree has been carved out from within, what the viewer actually sees is the negative of the tree and the space encasing the tree. This relates to the notion of all that is missing during the period of the trees dormancy.

The images of the subject used posses certain qualities, which compliment the working process, as do the materials used. In the natural world these qualities can be found gradually changing, often over lengthy periods of time, so much is lost to us visually during the passing of time. Lois’s aim is to preserve these moments through a visual image and form.