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Technique: Identification of spider silk painted with enamel (spray paint) and then collected and displayed on Mi-Teintes paper (Canson) 160 gsm – black.
Edition: [Universes, 2007]
Dimensions: Image/ sheet 42 x 29.6 cm
Inscriptions: Represented by the Milani Gallery
Provenance: Brisbane, QLD
Credit line: University of Queensland Art Museum
Accession no: 2008.20.03
Copyright line: Sandra Selig
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Selig’s Universes (71), 2007 is one of seven works part of the series; Universes, 2007 (69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75) purchased by the UQ Art Collection in 2008. The series is merely a fraction of hundreds of spider silk ‘recreations’ by the artist. Universes (71), 2007 is comprised of spider silk, enamel and fixative displayed on Mi-Teintes paper (Canson). Each spider web is unique in shape and pattern and complexity and the degree to which it might have collapsed or folded or broken onto the page when collected from the artist’s garden. The method for collecting the spider webs is drawn from the basis of a children’s science exercise, which has been adapted and extended somewhat. Universes (71), 2007 has been taken from its original garden context, spray painted and then fixed on black paper to create a two dimensional form that can be viewed in a different light, in a different way; an alternative context which can perhaps be considered one of many contexts including environmental, scientific and cosmopolitan.
Universes (71), 2007 was made at a similar time to some of Selig’s other works, all significant in terms of the artist’s oeuvre. For example Selig’s thread installations, cut poems and light projection works (where video recordings of sun light beaming on walls and reflecting off glass were collected) are intrinsically part of Selig’s pursuit of unveiling imperfect geometric complexities, which draw upon the concept of the ephemeral and the idea of preservation within a larger, even cosmic construct. For example in Sandra Selig’s Circuit, 2006, the thread installations are constructed directly into the museum space, using the walls as a host much like a spider would use a plant or natural artifice. As with the threads utilised in Circuit, 2006, the spider silk in Universes (71), 2007, are also very fine, seemingly fragile and temporary objects. This sense of fragility present in Universes (71), 2007, alludes to the webs’ stickiness, resilience and permanence as opposed to its ‘perishablity’ for that matter, present in Circuit, 2006. The colour is used like a kind of infusion of light, rather than an applied paint on a surface ground. Universes (71), 2007 uses colour like something that has been stained with light, allowing the work to take on more of a two-dimensional construct. For instance, if the work was to be outside in the garden, tort between two trees, then one may understand the spider web in a different manner, where light itself is constantly changing according to the time of day. Furthermore the web itself is evolving and most likely functioning accordingly, capturing insects with its sticky, complex membranes which may be hard to identify in its entirety, depending on its intrinsically obscure and sometimes invisible nature. The spider web is unperceived yet inhabited, none the less, much like one’s understanding of the cosmos. The space surrounding the web in Universes (71), 2007, gives one the sense that the web indicates a much larger, cosmic space and that which also lends itself to a temporary existence on a very different scale. The stained web and very black paper allow a clear contrast to formulate. The fact that the web is not suspended and that space exists around the web itself alludes to a dynamic vastness; inherently complex and unfinished in its reappropriated existence.
Jacques Langlassé
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