“ ’Mistakes’ are my best inspiration”. This is just a short preview – as well as an intriguing excerpt – taken from the interview with Molly Budd, visual artist and photographer able to lead us into a complex and yet magic creative dimension.
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The artist holds a great deal of silent power in contemporary society. ...the artist can reveal new perspectives and give a voice to those who are not seen or heard enough. Having the unobtrusive ability to shift representations through investigation and interrogation of issues that are important to you or that concern humanity can promote positive ideas in their fullest light. - M. B.
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“’Mistakes’ are my best inspiration”. This is just a short preview – as well as an intriguing excerpt – taken from the interview with Molly Budd, visual artist and photographer able to lead us into a complex and yet magic creative dimension. Filled with various references – from dance to sound, from philosophy to literature – Budd’s analogic pictures reveal a poetic world where the metaphorical relation between bodies and spaces are on focus. Her essential composition, like the recent project “The Chair is Touching the Wall” (2018), seem silent and still performances centred on contrasts such as black and white, full and empty spaces, borders and surfaces..
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Interested in photography from an early age, Molly Budd takes her inspiration from different sources, but she has been influenced especially by Surrealism and fashion photography. Currently based between London and Surrey, she has been taking part in several exhibitions and has been awarded with significant international prizes.
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Author Silvia Colombo
L.A.: Molly can you tell us a little about your project “The Chair Is Touching the Wall"?
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Molly Budd: This particular series was characterised by the theoretical writings of Martin Heidegger and his philosophy on ‘Dasein’. As the literal translation of ‘being there’, Heidegger speaks of an unencounterable space and the unity of space and objects. Where the chair and the wall occupy a particular space, they do not share the same space and it is impossible for them to exist in the exact same entity. Captivated by existential being and our personal place in the world, I translated an emotive response towards an inferiority amongst my surroundings. In a three-year culmination of scripted experimentation, I let go of many expectations held of my degree and was able to centralise a wholly subconscious subject matter that radiated an authenticity true to myself. A year prior to this work, my 2017 project ‘No Body’s Home’ pictured the human body in a literal and metaphorical representation of fitting into a place, most recognisably, and comfortably; the home. As an unexpected self-representation, my work kept returning to links with an individual spatial reaction. A subsequent project in late 2017 connoted an exposed body overwhelmed by the vast rural landscape of South Cornwall; an emotion only my creative consciousness could perhaps express.
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L.A.: Can you discuss your process for making these images or your creative process more generally?
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Molly Budd: My practice is very process lead so to find a subject matter that feels right is much a test of trial and error. Shooting all things that capture my attention; from portraiture to nature to movement, ‘mistakes’ are my best inspiration. I then go into the darkroom, print and play around with the images in there, critique my outcomes and combine specific areas of my past work, artist research and theoretical analysis into one study that is aesthetically intriguing. More often than not, a philosophical reasoning arises through not planning my subject matter and asking myself questions like why did I shoot this and what was I fundamentally drawn to.
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Molly Budd, The Chair Is Touching the Wall #1│ Buy it
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L.A.: How and when did you become interested in photography? And what characterised your artistic evolution?
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Molly Budd: When I was about 15 I started buying old cameras from the charity shop and became fixated by analogue photography- without having all the technicalities and formalities to abide by I created my own rules. The unknown image of a moment you’ve probably forgotten about until you get your film developed was always good fun to see and share with friends. I liked the ones that went wrong, the double exposures and the ones where you can just about make out what is going on. Those are image you cannot reproduce but I find so intriguing for some reason. This would make sense as to where my interest in photography began and as I pursued to study it in a more artistic and historical sense I was more fascinated in the Daguerrotype’s labour-intensive and time-based unpredictability. The oxymoronic simplicity of the pinhole capturing a picture combined with the scientific accuracy and complexity of cameras, film and development which likens it ‘light painting’.
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L.A.: Who were the first artists or photographers that inspired you? Who inspires you today?
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Molly Budd: At school I remember studying 60’s fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, I think that’s also the project when I started using 35mm film to create a sense of timelessness similar to his cinematic images of Marlene Dietrich and Audrey Hepburn. I’ve retained a love for the work of Salvador Dali since then as well, perhaps drawing more on his surrealist ideologies and attitude to working combined with Beaton’s minimalistic aesthetic; this is a creative approach I feel I have continued to work with throughout my artistic progression. ‘The Chair Is Touching the Wall’ was inspired greatly by the works of Laurent Millet, James Nares and Merce Cunningham. Drawing on ideas of form, shape and motion, these artists push the boundaries in their artistic field to abstractly express an inner ideal that presents new and imaginative representations of their subject matter.
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L.A.: What's the true role of the photographic medium in your creative work?
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Molly Budd: The role of photography for me is the same as the role of the pen or paint brush. It is to install a visualisation onto paper or into a physical representation. Allowing others to access an area of your mind that you may not be able to communicate, the image created, whatever form it takes shape in, is an extension of the self and how you see the world.
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Molly Budd, The Chair Is Touching the Wall #2 │ Buy it
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Molly Budd, The Chair Is Touching the Wall #3 │ Buy it
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L.A.: What is the role of the artist in contemporary society?
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Molly Budd: The artist holds a great deal of silent power in contemporary society. In such a subjective field, photography is matter-of-fact and inclusive and accessible whether it appeals to you or not. To visualise in a medium so tangible, the artist can reveal new perspectives and give a voice to those who are not seen or heard enough. Having the unobtrusive ability to shift representations through investigation and interrogation of issues that are important to you or that concern humanity can promote positive ideas in their fullest light.
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L.A.: Hopes and projects for the future?
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Molly Budd: As a result of this body of work, I have been lucky enough to begin a residency with Fotonow CIC in Plymouth. Continuing to research, shoot and experiment in the same sense as my university structure, I am working with community-based organisations continue my study on the body, shape and form even further. A new place to me with new ideas to discover!
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Molly Budd, The Chair Is Touching the Wall #4 │ Buy it
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Molly Budd, The Chair Is Touching the Wall #5 │ Buy it
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No Body's Home series
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Molly Budd
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