dsdn 171 | project 3 - hand-in

Assignment three: curatorial poster

©2013 helenkwilliams

Written text: Rococo and Modernist influences vie for domination in Helen Williams’ Embrace the Abstract.(2013) The plastic ‘braid’, crafted to express the build up and release of energy, subtly communicates a more profound underlying confluence. The woven loops obscure the straight line of the steel wire with the result being a clash of the elaborate versus the minimal. While alternate perspectives might suggest the determination of the steel to control the impulsive nature of the twisted plait, the waves of plastic suggest that there is strength in the repeating curves and that there will always be a place for the non-essential and purely ornamental.

Much of Williams’ work addresses similar themes of conflict between her desire for softly feminine forms and a need to maintain a more robust self-discipline in her creations. Previous works such as Pre-fab Restroom (2013) have leaned toward the spare and at times literal expression of masculine (Coffin, Davidson, Lupton, & Hunter-Stiebel, 2008) solidity and restraint. She explains her continual crossing over between the use of the curve and of the straight line as the search for the ultimate balance of the two and that ‘each iteration, each form in drawing closer to the perfect design, continues to prove that for harmony to be achieved one cannot exist without the other’.

Coffin, S. et al (2008). Rococo : the continuing curve, 1730-2008. New York, NY: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Distributed by Assouline Pub.