FRESH - Private View on 22nd April 2010

FRESH - First Year Show of UEL Fine Art students

at Trinity Buoy Wharf

on Thursday 22nd April 2010 from 5pm

For directions click here.

Armchair (2010)

armchair, steel wool

h 90 cm X w 85 cm X d 75 cm

Désirée Ickerodt explores the juxtaposition of opposites; in this case of interior decoration and industrial material i.e. steel wool. The armchair is a familiar household object and induces associations of comfort and homeliness. The steel wool’s abrasiveness negates this. This piece of furniture is holding the paradox of being inviting and repulsive at the same time. But there is more… A ball of steel wool crowns the armchair’s backrest. Is this a cushion or a person’s head? Has the furniture come alive? It is up to the viewers to make up their minds.

Someone commented on the armchair as being 'uncanny'.

This is what I found out about it on wikipedia:

The Uncanny (Ger. Das Unheimliche -- literally, "un-home-ly") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange.

Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.