Kayleigh Maimaran is GlogauAIR resident
from July, 2022 to September, 2022
Kayleigh Maimaran is an artist from Cork City, Ireland, who has been a resident artists at GlogauAIR from July to September 2022. This interview is the result of a conversation between Savanna Fortgang and the artist that took place during September 2022 in the residency.
Meet the Artist
Savanna: What do you do as an artist? What is your process? Why do you create the art that you do – what are overarching themes in your artwork?
Kayleigh: I’m a multidisciplinary artist working with video, sculpture and sound. I’m interested in the connection between the subconscious mind and space, and how installation art can be used as a tool to draw attention to our inner world.
S: How has your work evolved since being here at GlogauAIR? How has GlogauAIR changed your practice?
K: The architecture in Berlin was a great inspiration for me and it encouraged me to include architectural elements in my practice. During the three months of the residency, I experimented with different ways of working with plexiglass and creating small plexiglass sculptures inspired by the cityscape.
S: How did your artist journey begin
K: In 2021 I graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork Ireland and have been working as an artist full time since. I always try to expand my artistic horizon so I’m hoping to do more residencies in the future.
S: Do you find art residencies important?
K: Yes, I think artist residencies are extremely important. I love to meet other artists and learn about other people’s work. I also think it’s a great inspiration to immerse myself in a new environment.
S: How does your art process look like? How does it connect with you and the art you make?
K: I always try to create work with an immersive approach that invites the viewer into an environment that is different from our everyday life. I’m interested in the idea of creating a space that functions as a layover of a non-physical space and an architectural space. I usually work on sound, video and sculpture at the same time and try to bring it all together into a concluded body of work. I often have a really strong vision when I start working on a body of work. However, sometimes I have so many ideas in mind that I have narrowed it down during the process. I love keeping a little sketch book with me for just random ideas so when I have too many plans for one project I write them down and save them for the next time.
Statement
My practice combines different mediums such as video, 3D animation, sculptural elements and sound. I’m interested in the connection between the subconscious mind and space and how installation art can be used as a tool to draw attention to mental health, through 3D animation, sound and sculpture. Looking at the idea of a psychological space from a ‘Feeling Space’ point of view, I aim to visualize an invisible place that goes beyond the measurable world.
My most recent work Beyond Liminal explores a luminous psychological space through an immersive light landscape by combining 3D-video animation, sculptural-light elements and sound, to invite the viewer into a transcendent place afar from our fast-paced everyday environment.
Using light as the primary medium, the installation aims to impact the observer’s sensory perception, as large-scale lightboxes and the moving image play with geometrical shapes, architectural structures, as well as an arrangement of monochrome and multicoloured light to extend the room visually. In addition, an acoustic creation of space with ambiguous qualities enhances the concept of a place that goes beyond our meanable world.
Based on the negative effects of long-term stress on a physical and mental level, the work gives a counterexample of our overloaded day-to-day life and investigates the idea of a luminous subconsciousness ‘feeling space’, aiming to leave stress behind by constructing a visual and auditory experience that seeks to visualise an invisible psychological space that seems to be somewhere in ourselves and yet beyond.
GlogauAIR Project
During the three-month residency at GlogauAIR, I want to explore the relationship between viewer and artwork by creating an immersive light and sound installation with an interactive approach that allows the viewer to merge with the space. As my practice investigates the idea of psychological space, this project will focus on the visualisation of an invisible space and the indistinct nature of the human mind.
CV Summary
Kayleigh Maimaran is a visual artist from Hamburg Germany and is based in Cork City, Ireland. The German Irish artist graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design with a BA in Fine Art in June 2021. Recently she won a Graduate Studio Residency at Sample – Studios and had her first solo exhibition Beyond Liminal in the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion in 2022.
Solo Exhibitions
- 2022 – Beyond Liminal, Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, Cork, Ireland.
Group Exhibitions and Projects
- 2022 – Beyond Liminal, K Fest, Killorglin, Ireland.
- 2021 – Subminimal, Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, ‘Monochrome’ Cork, Ireland.
- 2021 – Submerge, Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, ‘Sample-Studios Members Winter Exhibition’, Lord Mayor’s Pavilion Cork, Ireland.
- 2021 – Mind Spaces, Crawford College of Art and Design ‘Subject to Change Degree Exhibition’ Cork, Ireland.
- 2021 – Subminimal, Source Magazine, ‘BA Phase of Graduate Photography Online’–, Ireland.
- 2021 – Mind Spaces, Irish Arts Review, ‘Graduate Gallery 2021’, Ireland.
- 2020 – Under the Surface, Indie Cork Film Festival, ‘Irish Artist Film’ – Under the Surface, Ireland.
Gallery
