The Graduates 2011: Krystina Naylor

Krystina Naylor is the artist behind a wonderful series of cardboard box sculptures, playfully abstract and cleverly conceived in a perspective specific sort of way. She studied fine art at Nottingham Trent University, and, in her formative years, was encouraged to be as creative as she is academic, something that is undoubtedly intrinsic to her ability to “see” how her pieces will look from a series of measurements and sketchbooks. Her own excitement in their physical realisation is just one of the reasons she made The Graduates 2011…

These simple, pleasing aesthetics from the Sheffield born artist, are a product of her own-brand logic with “space and non-space”. In example of which is here explorations in to the collapsed potential of an object, as with the flattened chair, it’s parts taking up space like an flatpack diagram made real, familiar in one sense yet totally dysfunctional.

If your portfolio was on fire, and you could only save one piece/project, which would you choose, and why?

Difficult question, I probably wouldn’t save finished pieces; note books serve a bit more of a purpose in the whole scale of things, they have measurements & methods, ideas & references. The thought of losing them is far more scary. Work can be re-made if it is absolutely necessary, but who wants to stay in the same place? If my entire portfolio was on fire I’d probably use it as the perfect excuse to derail and direct work elsewhere.

If you could collaborate with another artist/designer (or a number of artists/designers) to make a piece of work, who would you work with and what would you make?

Michael Craig-Martin, Richard Artschwager & John Stezaker. I’m not sure what we would make but I can tell you why I’d choose the three; I admire Craig-Martin’s 60s and 70s work where a sort of logic informed an expectation of his objects, that never actually performed but seemed as though they would or should. I’d like to make use of Artschwager’s use of representation of space and non-space, and I’d ask Stezaker for his knowledge on situation and ability to disperse visual information re-directing the connections initially made. I hope you are asking because this could be arranged?!

What was your finest moment at art school?

Probably when I finished the first of the open box series, really exciting moment. I already knew how it would look from the correct perspective, the box is essentially a series of six drawings put together in the right places. But I wanted to see it as this abstracted object that would dwell around your ankles. It was great, a bit like keeping a secret (few of my peers understood what it was that I was making), only when the distance is right does it’s camouflage disintegrates and starts to make sense as an illusion. The boxes require distance but also perform at a close range too, in most of my other work this dual reading doesn’t happen. So there was an excitement in that.

We believe it was the Jonas brothers who once said “we’re the kids of the future.” How, if at all, do you relate to that?

Isn’t that just a confusing way of describing the obvious pattern of an individual life span? Logically a child of the future would be the present and thats where we are? Although I do understand the term as a metaphorical motivation.

Can you give us ONE prediction about you and your work for the next year?

Next year I hope to be still in my Nottingham studio continuing to make work possibly with a residency under my belt. I’m frustrated with dysfunctional objects, so my practice will be opening up a little wider.