Elaine Phipps

Hybrids "is an invitation to invent your own hybrid creatures, or plants - think science or folklore and myth; you could think about evolving or improving a creature or plant, combining together one or more creatures or plants. You might want to think about something that would have new powers or specialisms - or it might just be something ridiculous and funny".

This piece was produced as a result of a collaboration with Elizabeth Chapman. We spent a lot of time looking at how we were going to collaborate at a distance (because - Covid).

We quickly established that neither of us were that keen on working from print-outs. I know Liz was already busy working with lots of other projects/work; my printer access was limited - so we needed a quick, simple solution.

We decided on a theme (a hybrid line) - and decided in order to keep things simple, we'd each produce a selection of marks/lines that were reflective of our own practice - and find a way to 'join them up'.

I sent a package to Liz; we had an e-mail conversation as to the form that the line would take and ways in which we could present the line - particularly in respect of it being 'exhibited' on Instagram. I'd intially thought of producing a concertina book - comprising several square pages, to anticipate the Instagram format.

Liz sketched out several ways we could use the Instagram grid as a set of 3 x 3 'tiles'. In the end - we decided on a frame of lines enclosing a central 'tile' featuring the caption/credit for the piece.

Many thanks to Liz for all her hard work in making this jigsaw work. I really enjoyed taking part in the collab and hope Liz did too! Our collab just went live on CSA Instagram, along with many others. Big thanks to Anna and CSA for keeping things going especially during lockdown!

Further reading:

"What do you get when you fuse mixed media art with science and technology? You get an entirely new form of art called hybrid art".

CSA instagram #hybrids

Another (favourite) fab CSA collab here

Founded by Liz, Artists Discussion is a forum for artists to, network, share artwork, advice and peer support for artists of all disciplines, on Zoom. The peer support sessions are free, online and delivered on a voluntary basis. 

A continuation of a series of online exhibition features that CSA ran last year on Instagram.

Hybrids "is an invitation to invent your own hybrid creatures, or plants - think science or folklore and myth; you could think about evolving or improving a creature or plant, combining together one or more creatures or plants. You might want to think about something that would have new powers or specialisms - or it might just be something ridiculous and funny".

My response was to submit a piece that I've often thought about, but never produced work around.