"You start off with an idea of what you might eventually end up with but through the process of realising it, anything can happen... I allow myself to be open to the possibilities of the material at each stage. I've moved away from a purist approach and I allow the material teach me things."
Maria Amidu

Maria Amidu makes sculptural objects and installation pieces using a range of source materials but particularly glass, often in combination with other things. For her, the process of working - developing ideas, testing materials and playing with forms - is the core of being an artist. She comes from a traditional craft skills training but has deliberately tried to distance herself from the idea that the object is the art. Working with glass is a partly scientific process, with the possibility for transformation and experimentation at each stage. It is within this process that Amidu finds the opportunities for play and chance which underpin her work. While she wants an audience to see the final piece, she feels the process by which she arrived there is equally important and should therefore, be made visible.

"I think glass is a really special material to work with and you have to learn what its possibilities are. It has an ethereal beauty about it and has so many ambiguous properties which can bring meaning to the piece: it can be transluscent, transparent or opaque, it seems solid but scientifically it's a liquid, it's strong and yet fragile, vulnerable yet tough." Maria Amidu

A MOMENT CAUGHT IN THREE DIMENSIONS...
This piece, shown here as work in progress, is the result of a collaborative exchange with Australian multimedia artist Rea, organised by the 198 Gallery in Brixton, London. The two artists worked together in Maria's East London studio over a period of 12 weeks and spent the time learning about and experimenting with each other's very different working practices. It is Amidu's most autobiographical piece, consisting of a large text panel, incorporating tiny glass objects. The whole piece is both a visual object and a rebus, a story told though pictures.

Amidu acknowledges that the risk you take when working through a process of trial and error is that sometimes you will fail and this isn't always easy to accept. But that failure is also part of the process because we can learn from our mistakes. She is also very interested in learning from what other people make of her work and discovering new meanings from that. "It's unpredictable...a bit like when you're browsing the web, You're on a path but you don't know exactly where it's going. Sometimes you come across interesting things or ideas which you put on hold (bookmark) for later but sometimes you allow yourself to be swept off course, just to see where it takes you."

Play is recognised as a useful way of provoking innovation and creativity in all fields and Amidu often refers to her passion for the Brazilian dance/martial art form Capoeira, in relation to developing her ideas, her practice and her own sense of self.

Maria Amidu is currently doing a residency at The Horniman Museumand Gardens in South London and will go to Sydney for the final part of her collaborative exchange with Rea, in February 2001.

WORKS IN PROGRESS...
Maria Amidu's work is driven by her ideas but also influenced by her desire to explore those ideas through the use of particular materials, especially glass.

• What would you do or make, inspired by this artist's work?

• Trial and error can be a risky process but an intriguing one too. Over the space of one term what would happen if you didn't throw any of your 'mistakes' away. Keep everything and at the end of term you could have a exhibition of the 'failures'. Your failures might prove successes in other peoples eyes. In fact you might end up liking them yourself.

• Which techniques or materials do you enjoy using most? Have you explored them to the full? What if you worked with the science department to really explore the properties and experiment with the potential of glue, paint, paper, felt, clay, wax, wood, plastic or any other material you particularly like.

For more info on glassmaking techniques visit the Corning Museum of Glass, education resource at http://www.cmog.org/Education/edglass.htm

For more info on Capoeira visit http://www.bnbcomp.net/capoeira/whatcap.htm

ONE MORE IMAGE HERE>

Maria Amidu, glass house. '...a moment caught in three dimension(s)', 1999 (4)