My art has been influenced by and focused on mortality; it is the common denominator in my work. As we grow older our perceptions change and our nearness to death causes us to appreciate and regret our decisions in life in varying degrees. Having received a prognosis of eight years, ten years ago I feel like I’m on borrowed time. This feeling of looking into the abyss at a premature age followed by 10 years of contemplation and rumination has influenced my perception. Over the last couple of years I worked on a series which considered my prognostic demise, this developed into my installation Time (2015). My new work is starting to evolve out of my natural surroundings in rural Suffolk, the relentless seasonal changes and the passing of time.
My garden is abutted by fields, each year I witness the crops, its sprouting, nurture, harvest, and its eventual ploughing-in to feed the subsequent cycle. I took many photographs and video throughout last season, here’s a short video from May of a field of barley being blown by the wind (effects have been added with iMovies): –
I also saved some of the barley…
I have been inspired by this and others’ representation of the cycle of nature throughout art history. It is a kind of memento mori, but one that is less obvious than the diamond studded skull of Damien Hirst, or his installations: ‘A 1000 years’, ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’, etc. I wanted to reference Van Gogh’s ‘Wheatfield with Crows’ whilst paring the form down to line, in an essentialistic fashion.
I looked at Cy Twombly and Sol Le Witt’s line drawings (the Le Witt drawing shown here is in remembrance of Eva Hesse).
Here’s a sketchbook idea I’m working on, I was thinking about creating it in large scale, probably in metal point, possibly in lead and gold, influenced by my earlier practice which referenced alchemy alluding to transcendence.
I am also considering mediums like video, animation, and digital paintings through the means of projection. I mocked up an ear of barley on Adobe 3D StudioMax, and quickly rendered it: –
I’ve started to think about the substructure of the traditional white screen which receives the projection. Should it be white? Does it’s surface have to be flat or could it be 3D? If 3D, how simply can you create a structure to provide meaning? Obviously anything is possible, the Houses of Parliament has been used as a white screen, as have many iconic buildings to provide a juxtaposition with the image.
Equally I’m interested in the floor we walk on when we view the art, which can be the art itself as in mosaics, or it can be more textual, see Massimo Bartolini’s Due, Elisabetta Benassi’s The Dry Savages and Oscar Bony’s 60 Square Meters and Its Information (which has chain link on the floor that you walk on, MoMA).
I’ve also been thinking about creating a lead or foam board cityscape, which I could then project onto. This idea was inspired by Alfredo Jaar’s sculpture of Venezia, Indiana Jones’ Tanis map room, and the pattern created by Albert Yonathan Setiawan work titled Cosmic Labyrinth: The Silent Path (2013). Conversely there’s the relatively flat 3d of paper sculptures seen in Marco Maggi’s Global Myopia.
Other works I’ve been looking at include Wade Guyton’s untitled 2011 series and Achilles Rizzoli’s The Shaft of Ascension amongst others.
