Imaging time in the fine art/archaeology interface
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2016-05-23

Using rock as a metaphor for compressed time, my first MA exhibition consisted of three pieces of work showing the progress in my thinking as I took rock, and references to Welsh slate, as my starting point. This was “work on paper and canvas, drawing on resonances from the disciplines of archaeology, geology and cosmology that concentrate on the idea of ‘flow’.” For my second MA exhibition I focused in on mark-making that specifically related to time as a concept. I exhibited only one piece, a work made up of twenty four wood panels with the title ‘Augustine’s Clock’. By this time, my attention was on the simplest mark, the pared down symbolism of the vertical line, a way of marking the passing of time that has been in use since the earliest days of human existence. How will my PhD investigations impact on the way in which we work across the art/science divide? Is there scope for working with ideas that emerge from the Fine Art / Archaeology
interface, for both archaeologists and artists? How will the pursuit of the archaeological imagination impact on the image that prehistory in particular has in the public consciousness? Is it possible to make a useful contribution to an understanding of
archaeological sites through Fine Art practice? These are the questions I intend to pose as I enter the debate about Archaeology and Fine Art, from the point of view of a Fine Artist.

Carmen MILLS (Aberystwyth University)