STAIRS

This work consists of two major parts. It began in 1988 when I became fiercely interested in stairs. I felt that they had to have equal depth and height in their steps. They had to have a square-based grid system as their plan. From sketches of stair shapes in the studio, I realized it had to be a piece of sculpture in its own right. As I built it in masonite on wood, I also realized it could not be on its' own. In the end I built three of them, all in the same dimensions of 90 x 65 x 116cm.

I had access to a project room at school where I tried the patterns that could be obtained from this shape if it was repeated and turned in different ways. I simply drew combinations of it on the wall. Here I also realized I needed something to balance the three sculptures with. I tried light transparent textile that was hung in lengths in the room. I thought these should move in the breeze of a fan. I was searching for something changeable and ephemeral. I filmed moving waves reflecting bright yellow colours of houses and blue sky, creating interesting ever-changing patterns. I thought maybe I could start working with video?

This was one step too far at the time. We did not have the resources at school for video editing. All that is left is a tape in a format not usable any more, and some photos of these wonderful wave patterns. What then? How could I find or realize an entity that could match my stair sculptures? In the end I settled for something close to ever-changing evolving form. In clay I did long softly changing shapes that suggested the growth or development of cells, a coming into being of something unknown. I made cast forms in plaster and on those I cast nine long shapes in glass fibre armoured polyester, measuring 22 cm x 245 cm each. They were light enough to hang from the ceiling.

I have thought of these two entities as the classical versus the romantic. It might also be a question of form versus content. I still see these investigations as a nodal point in my work as an artist.

The work has been shown several times, for example at Pictura in Lund in 1989 and at Konsthall RIX in Linköping in 1992.