Kasper Pincis: Pekee-Nuee-Nuee

KASPER PINCIS: PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE

dalla Rosa Gallery 8 Sep - 20 Oct 2012

dalla Rosa Gallery | 121 Clerkenwell Road | London EC1R 5BY | dallarosagallery.com

Pekee-Nuee-Nuee, New Work by Kasper Pincis 8 September - 20 October 2012 dalla Rosa Gallery

In his recent work Kasper Pincis has explored the possibility of translating some of his favourite themes from paper to three-dimensional pieces, experimenting with balsa wood and gesso to create works reminiscent of folkloristic artefacts.

Pekee-Nuee-Nuee* brings together the traditional art of scrimshaw (used by men at sea to carve and decorate whalebone, ivory, shells and other materials at hand) and the more austere typewriter art that has been distinctive of his practice since the beginning.

Rather than being an author, Pincis feels more comfortable in inhabiting, and playing his role in the metanarrative, whittling or typing away to create props for some kind of museum/film-set/lecture. The act of whittling seems quite accessible, generally a knife is used on a piece of wood to make something sharp – a stake or a tent-peg – not really to a design but until it is just right, thus extracting an ‘archetypal’ form from the wood.

Materials play an important role in Pincis’ art and his approach to them can be seen as ambivalent. On the one hand he relies on the artifice of using stain or varnish to make something look heavier or more solid than it is, but the ‘truth’ of certain materials adds significance, like the calcium of the chalk in the gesso for the calcium of the (whale) teeth.

Kasper Pincis studied at Camberwell College of Art, Goldsmiths, and Royal Academy Schools, he has taken part in exhibitions and projects in Turin, Berlin, Kraków, London. He is currently running for the 2012 Jerwood Drawing Prize and will be showing along other selected artists at the Prize exhibition at Jerwood Space in London (September - October 2012). *Pekee-Nuee-Nuee - Whale [Fegee]

opposite: Kasper Pincis, Whale Tooth 1 (2012), balsa wood, gesso, shellac, varnish, oil paint, nail

Kasper Pincis Education 2001 Camberwell College of Art, BTec Foundation Art with merit 2004 Goldsmiths College, Joint Honours BA Fine Art and History of Art 2:1 Degree 2007 Royal Academy Schools, PGdip Fine Art, Gold medal winner Exhibitions Dec 2012 - Jan 2013, Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings Sep - Oct 2012, Pekee-Nuee-Nuee at dalla Rosa Gallery (solo show) Sep - Oct 2012, Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space, London Jun - Jul 2012, Cross Section/01 at dalla Rosa Gallery, London May - Aug 2012, Royal Academy Summer Show, London Feb - Apr 2012, Perek at Aanant&Zoo Gallery, Berlin (solo show) Jan 2012, dalla Rosa at London Art Fair, Art Projects Jul - Aug 2011, Print & Design, Bearspace at SW1 Gallery, London Sep 2010, By Any Means at dalla Rosa Gallery, London (solo show) Jan 2010, Print Now, Bearspace at London Art Fair Sep 2009, Open Studio, Deptford X, London Nov 2008 - Jan 2009, Zero at Aanant & Zoo, Berlin May - Jun 2008, Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps at Parlour Project Space, London Sep - Nov 2007, Identity at Martinart Gallery, Turin Jun 2007, Royal Academy Schools Diploma Show, London Dec 2006, Everything to Lose, Brixton Aug - Nov 2006, ASP.KRK.RAS.LDN at Wisnicz Castle, Krakow Feb 2006, Premiums, Royal Academy Schools interim show Statement I have always felt that my work is more driven by a literary impulse rather than a purely visual one. Although my practice ultimately manifests itself in the abstract, it primarily borrows formal aspects and materials from literature, academic theory and bureaucracy by using media such as newsprint, typewriters, carbon paper, pencil, and letraset.

A key influence in my work are books on twentieth century exploration, such as the Kon-Tiki expedition and the conquest of Everest. What fascinates me most about these stories is not the actual achievement, but the particular sensibility portrayed. The explorers and scientists depicted in these books are almost exclusively men with beards, yet by necessity they adopt very domestic arrangements.

The other central tenet of my practice is the idea of art as something achieved through an economy of expression. To this end I generally use what might be termed low-fi or old fashioned technology that I am able to understand and manipulate directly to try and create maximum effect through minimum input (i.e. the typewriter). This aspect of my work has been strongly inspired by Henry David Thoreu’s book Walden and publishing by the Solidarność movement in Poland.

opposite: Kasper Pincis, 5° Progression (2012), typewriter on paper

Kasper Pincis, Pekee-Nuee-Nuee (2012), installation view at dalla Rosa Gallery

Kasper Pincis, Wave Experiment 1 (2012), typewriter on paper

Kasper Pincis Q&A with Giovanna Paternó GP Thinking about your work I instinctively look for the narrative that underlies it, which seems both elusive and familiar. How important is what you read and who are the authors that influenced you most?

KP It’s a difficult question to answer, as there are several potential layers of something that could be called ‘narrative’, and yet a specific narrative is something that I generally wish to avoid. I do try to manipulate perhaps feelings of familiarity that are connected with particular media - the humming fan and warm light of the slide projector, the familiar texture and smell of a paperback book page - but I try to use these as a jumping-off point for the viewer to develop their own narratives. It’s a matter of giving the viewer confidence that there is a ‘meaning’ there, so that they are not too self-conscious to enjoy their own creative experience.

Probably one of the main watershed pieces of my entire practice so far that hopefully illustrates this, is a slideshow made halfway through my post-grad. The images were collected from a variety of sources and arranged in such a way that there was a feeling of progression, and I recorded a voice-over of a guy reading in Swedish. The text was really meant to be immaterial as I didn’t want anybody to understand it, so I just used a Swedish translation of a teen-girls’ storybook, changing the girls’ names to those of Arctic scientists and the name ‘Happy Farm’ to ‘Base Camp’.

In this way the viewers (so long as they weren’t Swedish) could relax and enjoy the reassuring sonorous tones of a narrator with enough familiar words and names to feel there was a story there. Incidentally the one Swedish girl in my year found the piece very moving as the occasionally violent images of polar bears juxtaposed with the spoken story of these men that loved their ponies, but I was happy for these kinds of unintended readings to happen. I feel a lot of art is about arranging things, putting things together to allow for this germination of new ideas.

Another layer of narrative that could be read into or applied to mine or anybody’s practice is the performative aspect, the narrative of me actually going to the studio and making the work that I do. Though I am a fairly sincere, straightforward person I find this slightly more compelling as I don’t fully understand it myself, and I end up feeling like a protagonist in a novel, experiencing things on the viewer’s behalf. In this respect, what I read is very important as I have always felt more inspired in my art by literature, rather than other visual art. The authors that have influenced me most are Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Raymond Chandler, Thomas Mann and Georges Perec.

GP You have attended some of the most established Art universities in London and Europe, how do you see your formative years?

Kasper Pincis, Orchard (2012), limited edition photocopy on paper, ed. 33/33

Kasper Pincis, Whale Tooth 4 (2012), balsa wood, gesso, shellac, varnish, oil paint, green baize

KP I’m ambivalent about them. I feel I’ve been quite sheltered never having left London to study, though I have travelled extensively all my life. I also look back and realise what a slow process it was.

I really didn’t know what I was about until about six months before the end of my three year post-grad, so feel like I was this wide-eyed, ingenuous idiot savant for seven years. It was a real education though- thinking about it I can feel the metamorphosisand I think I was very lucky in my year group at the Royal Academy, a few older, wiser students pulling me through and giving me confidence.

GP If I’m not mistaken your first ‘figurative’ typewriter piece dates back to 2007. What brought you to this particular medium and how did you develop your technique?

KP The main inspiration comes from a quote from Truman Capote. Writing about Kerouac’s On The Road Capote commented ‘it [wasn’t] writing, that’s typing.’ I was taken by the idea of typing as a separate medium in and of itself, so the first experiments were in figurative, visual imagery.

My other main influences at the time were Walden by Thoreau and The Joy of Painting on TV with Bob Ross, so the images were a combination of the heroic and kitsch depictions of the American outdoors. Those pieces were themselves slightly performative, in that the act of making them is maybe more explicit in some way than in a more graphic, illusory drawing technique, but as the works become more abstract and repetitive I think this aspect becomes more and more central.

The more recent works were inspired by the interference patterns made by overlapping layers of off-cuts of screentone, and have allowed an element of chance back into the process.

GP Your ever-growing collection of vintage typewriters mostly comes from your local street market in South East London, an area still unspoilt by ferocious developments and with an intriguing docklands past. Apart from being a source of interesting analogue equipment, do you think the location has any connection with your work?

KP I feel a strong connection with Deptford and am very inspired by its maritime history, though I don’t believe this is explored explicitly in my work. I feel somehow that it is an environment that encourages serendipity, which is very useful.

When I first moved into my flat here, nothing made me see the back of the building until the first time I had to take out the recycling, when I saw suddenly that the back of the building is covered in a mural of an 18th century painting of ships being built nearby. I feel like I’m living in a painting.

GP You once said that ‘economy’ has an important role in your practice, does that relate to materials and techniques or is it a more general precept?

KP I think it is a guiding principle of all art. Economy of means, of expression for me is where art lies. When something is expressed as simply as possible, when you see simultaneously the effect and the thing in itself, vibrating on the surface, that is art.

Economical materials help in this process as they force you to work a bit harder, though that may be a slight generalisation.

GP As an inventive craftsman, do you enjoy the challenge of experimenting with and mastering a new technique?

KP Yes. I like a challenge, and the idea of ‘in camera’ editing, where trying to achieve a particular effect makes you end up using simpler technology in a more convoluted way. Hopefully a technique should always be new so that mistakes can be made. I’m not particularly prolific as I like using a technique for the first time, when it’s still clumsy.

When it gets too slick- fewer mistakes and fewer happy accidents.

GP Your landscape work is becoming more abstract and also gathering both typewriter and drawing elements, how do you see it developing?

KP I don’t know, it’s still in its nascent stages so anything can happen. I’ve enjoyed it so far though, the simple act of using the typewriter to type up a grid to help grid-up a drawing. It gives the drawings a slightly different feel, like some sort of anachronistic fax machine, though I realise that’s now a tautology.

GP Have you ever dreamt of becoming an explorer or a sherpa? Or maybe a sailor?

KP I like the idea of it, anyone of these things sound amazing though I’m not sure I’m supposed to ever experience them directly. I know there are art residencies in the Antarctic which theoretically I would love to do, but I think it might be my job to experience these things vicariously through old books and slides. Concurrently with my art practice I have worked for over ten years in museums, and I love dealing with the stuff that gets back, the artefacts, the things that tell the stories.

GP Do you have unrealised projects?

KP I would like to build a raft to navigate Deptford Creek, also known as the Ravensbourne River. I think it might go as far as Catford.

(London, January 2012)

Kasper Pincis’ studio in South-East London (Summer 2012)

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