Morys Davies- MA Fine Art
Emotional Brutalism
Concrete is such a lifeless material, and yet so much of our lives are built on it. I always talk about how beautiful Charles de Gaulle Airport is. Something about the brutal, oppressive use of concrete is so radical–it's beautiful. It’s a functional building. Airports are such high-pressure, intense, chaotic spaces; it makes sense to build them as minimal, frictionless, and efficient.
I’ve taken these same contemporary performance metrics and placed them where they don’t belong. I took a teddy bear, a symbol of emotional regulation: cosy, comfortable, soft, warm, friendly. And stripped it down in the name of efficiency. Its complex, rounded forms have been reduced to the fewest points while remaining identifiable.
This concept parallels Orwell's Newspeak, in which language is systematically reduced to limit the possibilities of thought and expression. Likewise, the bear has undergone a visual reduction: its complexity has been removed until only enough information remains for it to be recognisable, serving as a visual representation of the same thought process.
Concrete rejects comfort. Concrete rejects imagination. Concrete is not cosy. Concrete is not soft, warm, nor friendly. Innocence is not lost; the inner child is still there. But it’s busy. Optimised. Scheduled. Paved over. Following orders. Conforming. There’s no time to play, bills to pay, things to do. That’s where the underlying sadness of this work stems from for me. It reminds me of youth. What you were and what you are now. Kids never get anything done. They waste so much time. This is the gentrification of childhood. Forget your dreams; the future is here.
