2.5. Roger Hiorns

Roger Hiorns is a British contemporary artist based in London. He is best known for his works with Copper Sulphate, specifically, his use of Copper Sulphate in transforming a beaten London building into a piece titled "Seizure".

The images above are of a London council flat that was once beaten and empty, now encased head to toe in copper sulphate crystals. Every inch of the building is glistening with the organic blue crystals, artificially grown with Hiorns' artistic alchemy.

James Lingwood, co-director of a company known as Artangel described the piece as "beautiful but not nice. There's both an attraction and an aggression about it. It is a toxic takeover."

I am incredibly interested in Hiorns' use of crystals. There is an interesting factor behind using natural formation artificially. Crystals are an organic form, but can be controlled by man as seen above. I am interested in using crystals within my own work, although perhaps not on such a large scale.

I am interested in creating personal, small scale pieces / sculptures / images, in order to create a personal experience for every viewer.

I fully appreciate the impact that large pieces have on the viewer - especially installations like this one. The fact that a sculpture can be larger than yourself creates a feeling of vulnerability and gives the sculpture power and dominance. This can create an entirely different effect than a small and personal sculpture, whereas I would rather harness personal, differing emotions per person as they view my art.

I find that it is incredibly important to view crystals on a small scale, due to the delicate, organic shapes and patterns that are formed in creation. On a large scale such as Hiorns' installation piece, the crystals are so plentiful that none of them are particularly special, and all of the beautiful small details merge into a wall. I prefer to appreciate the natural beauty of organic form. Especially if it has been hand cultured.

The first crystals that I ever hand cultured were copper sulphate crystals, as seen below.

I much prefer the experience given by viewing the individual crystals close up. I enjoy the subtle transparency in the crystals, and how they individually react to the light. They are sharp but delicate. These details are lost when they are mass produced, and so I would like to stick to small scale crystal growing.

Another benefit of remaining on a small scale, is that the materials required to grow crystals are often expensive, thus the bigger the sculpture, the more expensive it would be. The smaller the sculpture, the cheaper it would be.

I may use copper sulphate crystals later in the developments of my work, but I would also like to experiment with different types of crystallisation since I have already experimented with copper sulphate before. I would like to leave the door open to new experiments.