A Short History of Mia’s Influences

Mia Westerlund, throughout her career, has always focused her pieces on this overarching theme of organic movement, flow, and sensuality. This being due to her background and love of dance as a child, and the time she drew up in. In the seventies, there were many more rules and specificities artists had to keep in mind in order to be successful and later the rules dissolved and freedom to express yourself anyway you desired was finally allowed. The two big movements of the time that Mia especially identified with were Minimalism which started in the 60s when Westerlund got her start in sculpture making, and Land art or outdoor installation. An art world time of liberated voices, varying mediums, minimalism, and reflected sensuality of the period.  

Eventually her personal ideals carried over into her procedure as much as it did into her works. These flowing forms were not simply produced and reproduced. There was slow and unknown time of manipulation of materials and freedom of the mind. She always took to. Much of her process was partially focused on the idea that she wouldn’t know where she would end up. Her procedure was just if not more important than the finished work itself.  

Our idea was to each take 3 different important aspects of Mia Westerlund’s Flank II (the materials representing minimalism, the movement representing her personal inspiration from dance, and the sensuality represents the feminist movement and time period) gain inspiration from them, and each produce a piece in a different medium influenced by the sculpture itself. Three different voices, in three different works, in three different mediums, all inspired by the same sculpture. 

Hannah’s Work: Minimalism and Materials   

I was tasked with taking inspiration from Mia’s work and reimagining Flank II in a way that represents her use of minimalistic materials. She is infamous for her use of concrete and metals, famous for forming them into organic shapes and lines. So, for my work, I took that a little further by turning Flank II on its side and repeating the pattern. 

Material: Dyed Polymer Clay

Materials: Dyed Polymer Clay

That way people would be more inclined to be face to face and appreciate the detail put into the work. I also added a descending case to show off the individual wrapped segments, making an homage to Mia and how she puts so much detail into her works that are normally not so apparent until closer inspection. I also formed the smaller segments into an organic curved shape. Again, taking inspiration from Mia’s flow and curved forms. 

Materials: Dyed Polymer Clay

The piece is also composed of all one single material, that being polymer clay. Drawing off the organic green and grey colors of the original work. And through this process, I realized the immense difficulty creating those organic curves and shapes with the materials she prefers (metal and concrete most often). Getting the material to work in your favor was half the battle as when it did work, there was no confirmation that it would end up looking as organic as Westerlund made hers out to be. It was much more difficult than I imagined, and it made me appreciate Mia’s process more than I had previously. 

Gia’s Work:

Many are unaware that Mia Westerlund makes not only sculptures, but drawings as well. These drawings have many key themes including movement due to her love of dance. In order to represent these themes and her other work, I created a digital collage of her paintings and sketches onto her Flank II piece.

I wanted the interesting teal color to still shine through while also getting a glimpse of the different patterns she created. I used Photoshop to edit the shape of Flank II onto an old paper image. Then I lined up images of her other work on top of this image. I added another extra layer of her images after this then made the image brightness a bit higher. I am a very big fan of her sketches so ideally, this is what I would love Flank II to look like. I think it would draw more peoples attention to it and enjoy her creativity more since there is a variety of mediums being used.

Amika’s Work:

When first observing Flank II mainly focused on its angular nature and industrial feel. While researching her work later, I discovered Mia Westerlund’s use of organic movement and sensuality in her work relates to her childhood love of dance. In my opinion, Flank II does not express organic movement, it consists of man made objects, and hard edges. I wanted to bring more organic movement to the piece. I did this by using a long exposure on a DSLR camera, a technique called light painting. I used a green laser with multiple pin holes, and “drew” organic color of the piece.

While editing in post production I wanted to highlight the pieces texture. To achieve this I darkened shadows which accentuated the grooves in the concrete. At night the piece already has a natural orange hue due to the street lamps located nearby. At first I thought this would be a set back to my project because you need darkness for light painting. Instead it played in my favor because the orange perfectly contrasts with the green from the laser. So I went with it, and upped the contrast which I think adds a needed element. I chose this camera angle to capture the piece because it captures the approximate size and features. When viewing the sculpture in person one wouldn’t automatically have this perspective because I laid on the ground to get it.