Eva Hesse – Research

“I am interested in solving an unknown factor of art and an unknown factor of life. In fact, my idea is to counteract everything I’ve ever learned or been taught about those things – to find something that is inevitable that is my life, my feeling, my thoughts.”

Eva Hesse

I’ve decided to research the artist Eva Hesse as her work is very relevant to my own practice in the fact that she uses industrial and everyday found materials (rope, string, wire, rubber and fiberglass) to suggest emotions. Her work as an abstract painter led to her experimenting with these materials and then began to portray psychological moods, organic associations and sexual innuendos in a minimalist way.

Her work seems to suggest the vulnerability of the human body and they seem to momentarily take on a life of their own. Parts of her work seem to interact with each other (another aspect of what we are trying to achieve in our material project) and link together separate parts made from diverse materials.

One of her most important pieces of work is ‘Repetition Nineteen III’. She made several cylindrical structures from fiberglass which seem to link to the recent Minimalist movement. However, despite the repetition their are subtle differences between each sculpture as each form has a hand-sculpted individuality. It is visually simple in its design but has links to her previous preoccupations with compartments and is also ambiguously sexual. As it allows light to pass through the containers, it gives them a sort of calming, spiritual quality.