My work is constructed from three main elements, those being the familiar object, fine art display and literary theory. I construct work from a lexicon of gestures, materials, imagery and texts. The work often brings up notions of the fragility of life, the body and the visceral. Working with this lexicon, my work forms initially aesthetic focused collages. This aesthetic is important in the approachability of my work. As my work is based from elements that form something bigger, I tend to take one idea into several platforms and experiment with form and presentation. In this way, the work could be seen to be viral, something that can expand without a definitive end, creating copies of itself in different materials and contexts. The idea of intertextuality is important within the understanding of my practice. Barthes text The Death Of The Author also concerns me. This relationship between the viewer as author and myself as author of a work has a lot to add when thinking about the work I make. Nothing exists without a viewer to witness it in one way or another. Does that make them, the viewer actually the author and me only as instigator? The plinth is an important aspect of fine art display that I utilise within my work. On the viewers level, it gives the critical space needed for an imaginative response. It allows for easier connections to be brought about between works. It constructs references to art history bringing the familiar object to a new, perhaps unknown place. Writing is an important element to the work as it helps to set the tone of how something will be developed from my lexicon of gestures, materials, imagery and texts. The writing isn’t always evidenced in the completed work but plays an important role in the development. I would site Douglas Gordon and Damien Hirst as two significant influences. |