Artist Bio
Madison Daly, 19, born in Blackpool, Lancashire, is a 2nd year Fine Art student at Leeds Arts University. She is a sculptor, working primarily with clay, plaster, mod-roc, wire, and wood. Creating both large scale and smaller scaled pieces, she deals with topics such as space, time, physical portrayals of mental states, and the idea of the unconscious.
Artist Statement
My sculptural works deal with several issues and ideas. This past year I have focused more towards society and physical portrayals of mental states. I have made work distorting the human body, elongating limbs, reading body language and posture, stereotypes being positive and negative, researching into how people interact, observe and communicate with each other.
The purpose of my work is for the audience to be aware and feel understood. To show how I view the world around me and draw attention to things we may overlook about each other too. Exploring textures, colours, scale, I create pieces that work together and reflect my intentions in creating my own mini social settings, etc. These sculptures range from 10 cm – 35 cm in height and 8 cm – 15 cm in width.
I take a lot of influence from artists and theorists such as Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Franz West, Henry Moore, Sigmund Freud, Wittgenstein, and the Surrealist movement. My sculptures in the past have been both abstract and figurative and focused on this idea of awkwardness and feeling like an attraction, being observed, feeling vulnerable in your body.
As my techniques have progressed I have found myself drawn to more figurative themes than abstract and have become the observer myself. I enjoy understanding the world around me, observing body language, the world from afar and making art for how I depict these ‘characters’ I have built in my head to feel, think, and see their own lives.
I make my sculptures from the bottom to the top. Pouring plaster into a handmade mould twice to solidify around thin wire, then building these people’s postures and stories as I go. I do not have a specific image in mind and do not focus on the end result but rather on enjoying the process of making and exploring materials. I use mod roc to create the texture on the figures’ limbs, making certain areas rough and adding onto others to make them bigger or smaller. Then choosing the colour I feel the piece needs adds a whole new life to the sculptures for me. They become their own things and their own beings in their own separate world. That is what my work does in society and what I aim for with each sculpture I make.