Red Field I, II, III and IV are a series of installations completed between 2001-2002. They began with the idea of breaking apart a free-standing sculpture (Horticulture) and creating a structure that filled a space. Red Field I was done in a room at the University of Victoria and as I was constructing this piece, I imagined that I was making a three-dimensional action painting in the tradition of Jackson Pollock with the four walls forming a framing device similar to the four edges of the canvas. Red Field II is made in a section of one of the rooms in the Burnaby Art Gallery. This structure relied on a more formal method of construction to create a grid like formation, inspired by an Eva Hesse piece I once saw. Red Field III (no images) is a piece done in Surrey as part of the BC Festival of the Arts and its construction was based on the decisions made in Red Field I. Red Field IV was made as part of an outdoor installation exhibition at LA Mission College just outside of Los Angeles, CA. I chose palm trees as the structures around which I based my installation in that they seemed to exist in that strange place between the natural and the artificial.
Wendy Welch 