Mass and Composition:
A project applying the concepts of Rachel Whiteread’s Ghost to a tangible, three-dimensional fabrication
(2020)
Rachel Whiteread’s Ghost is a plaster cast of a Victorian living room. The composition of the sculpture draws influence from Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ.
In Ghost, there is a strong sense of symmetry with asymmetry occurring locally in the sculpture. The fireplace serves as the node of the piece, highlighting the primary line of symmetry and amplifying the planar change found throughout the piece. As the dominant ordering device of the artwork, the fireplace also is responsible for recentering the sculpture. This recentering occurs along a 3x3 grid shifted to the left side of Ghost.
Diagrams exploring the compositional relationships of Flagellation of Christ and Ghost
The geometries of the compositional mass are guided by the superimposition of a 3x3 grid with a gap and grid created from the proportions of Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ. Similar to the fireplace in Ghost, a rectangle is utilized to recenter the mass. Starting the the recentering rectangle, lines of symmetry are carried over multiple faces of the composition, forming spaces amplified by planar change
Hand Drafted Orthographic Drawings of Composed Mass
Digital Orthographic Drawings of Composed Mass
Model Views of Final Composed Mass