CASE STUDY
Context
Brief outline of the artist’s practice
My ideas usually start with fragments, disconnections and almost total uncertainty. Things that seem disparate are forced together and asked to speak to each other, and through this process of construction and collage I attempt to develop a dialogue, sometimes playful, sometimes trivial, sometimes formal, sometimes poetic. I explore the way narratives and associations are created through visual juxtaposition and configuration and examine the mind/eye interplay – how we make connections and seek meaning by the seemingly simple, but fundamentally complex act of ‘looking’.
Drawing, photography and print have always been central to my practice and believe that exploring new technology is the fundamental basis for printmaking in historic, contemporary and conceptual terms.
My recent work has evolved from a number of collaborative projects that explore archives and collections as starting points, working with institutions including London Zoo, Rugby Art Gallery and The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MODA) in Middlesex, to produce site specific and more traditionally installed gallery based work.
1. Brief explanation of working process
‘House and Gardens’ at the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, Barnet, Middlesex (MODA) was a series of digital vinyl prints placed on and around the exterior fabric of the museum building. The work related both to the museum’s archive and to the content and context of the Museum’s ‘Suburban Landscape’ exhibition. Alongside this I also made a personal response to the work and ideas generated by artists participating in the ‘Sculpting the Suburban Landscape’, an accompanying exhibition installed in the grounds of the Museum. My aim was to create a link between the two exhibitions and to encourage a dialogue between artist, visitor and museum. The work itself plays between photographic ‘realism’ and images reduced to outline, shape or symbol. There were four separate pieces:
‘House and Garden’ at the entrance to the museum was a collection of symbols and images generated from personal memory alongside archive and exhibition references.
‘Trowels and Shears’ was a visual response to a sculptural piece that used reclaimed garden tools to create a formal garden.
‘Bling Garden’ was an attempt to emphasise the artificiality and pretensions of certain modern suburban ‘landowners’.
‘Zen Garden’ was a personal homage to the Japanese garden and presented full-scale photographic images of pebbles, grass and shadows shown in juxtaposition with the ‘real’ object of the photograph.
2. Relationship of digital technology to other processes/technologies
My use to digital technology relates closely to both silkscreen and relief printmaking processes. The language of Photoshop has evolved through a technical advancement that can be traced back through industrial photomechanical techniques. This technology also relates to the fundamental graphic language of ‘black on white’ inherent in the very earliest intaglio and relief prints. The image emerging from an inkjet digital printer holds similar a sense of ‘revelation’ as the peeling back of the paper from a metal plate or woodblock. The construction of an image on a computer screen is not dissimilar, for me, to working with the collage.
3. Indication of how they regard the surface in terms of importance
This varies, depending on the idea. At times the surface as related to the object or form of the work seems vital, especially with paper based images – but I also enjoy the sense of ‘disconnection’ and ‘liberation’ from an idea through the application digital technology e.g. As part of the Impact conference series I was invited to make work digitally in Britain which was then sent electronically to be printed and exhibited in South Africa, and only witnessed the work through photographic documentation.
Specific issues to the new piece of work
1. At what point in the development of the work is the size of the image fixed?
The work was site specific so a consideration of scale was important, although this was more of a practical, rather than conceptual issue. Part of my earlier research explored vinyl cutting and digital print technologies, as used in industrial manufacture and graphic signage. To realise the project at MODA I worked with an industrial sign making company in Northampton, exploring the potential of digitally printed vinyl panels that currently form the basis of most urban and commercial and retail display.
2. At what point is the actual surface considered?
The surface of the building and the image surface were similar, so the consideration of surface, in this case was irrelevant, although at other times I will often print paper based images onto heavy weight or textured paper ’, as I enjoy the way an the image becomes ‘fused’ to the physical surface of the paper.
3. What factors determine the choice or creation of the surface in this new work?
The physical quality of the work was totally determined by the technical limitations of the process.
4. How does working digitally contrast with other practises they have used?
I was intrigued by the digital images of the ‘Zen Garden’ piece when the work was photographed for documentation. The re-photographed images of pebbles and grass (i.e. the photographs of the digital vinyl prints) appear, on screen, somehow more ‘real’ in comparison to the adjacent areas of the ‘real’ pebbles and grass. The images appear in some way illusionary, like a digital ‘trompe l’ oeil’ and I am trying to reason why this should happen. Before digital technologies the degrading of an image through transmission or mechanical reproduction would be a natural result of the limits and restrictions of a technical ‘reality’. We are conditioned to understand and react to ‘degraded’ images e.g. black and white television or a ‘half-tone’ printed photographs, and this itself evolved from an innate ability to make sense and react to visual ‘fragments’ e.g. shadows and camouflage. In the ‘High Definition’ digital world it could be suggested that we experience a sensory ‘overload’, a ‘super real’ but ultimately ‘unreal’ reality, that is somehow enhanced, rather than degraded, through the process of digital reproduction.
