Elisa Katharine Wilcock

As an installation artist, I use exclusively organic latex as the predominant material to create large scale installations. Using this material, my installations allow the viewer to fully immerse themselves within the work. The material and visual qualities of the latex immediately refer back to flesh, which then allows me to create soft sculptural objects that play with form, weight and gravity within the installations I build. Most recently, my practice has embodied large scale sheets of latex (the largest to date being 6m x 2m) as well as the creation of multiple soft sculptures of various forms and shapes. These installations using organic latex adhere to ideas of bio morphism, ephemerality, the body and contingency. Playing with materiality, soft sculpture and object association, I transfix the viewer by evoking feelings of discomfort and/or desire. The viewer will often feel repelled and disgusted by the sheer resemblance of the latex to flesh or intrigued with desire to touch the material – its physicality allows for a paradox of feelings to be instilled within the viewer. These feelings are stirred by the associations I make through how I manipulate each type of installa