RCA graduation work : julie usel

Royal College of Art - Graduation Work
2012

What physical form could I give to anxiety? How do we wear anxiety; how does it reveal itself on the body? Could I induce this feeling through objects and jewellery?

The relationship between anxiety and the creative process fascinates me. The work itself gives physical form to the pain and tension I see as inseparable to this. The monoprints show my personal experience of this, reflecting the feeling of tearing myself open, vomiting jewellery, or giving birth to it.

The rings themselves reflect this process, containing elements of creation, destruction, metamorphosis and evolution. They invoke a range of anxieties by creating a tension between the wish to keep the objects intact or to reveal their hidden secret. This action can be through a destructive process, or require the wearer to go through a repulsive experience.

The work is a physical and emotional journey, exploring and externalising emotions as objects, and invoking the tension we all feel concerning change.

Body of work includes: three series of rings, a series of monoprints titled: Illustrations of the Creative Process (small size: ~20cm X 30cm, Creation with frame: 120cm X 120cm), a video clip and a book: Anxiety, Motherhood and the Creative Process.

Credits Photography: John McGrath, Dominic Tschudin

anxiety rings from julie on Vimeo.