roves and roams
TINGLING FINGERS As is the way with a quarterly magazine (or quarterly anything) you realise the time passes between each milestone at a swift, oftentimes uncomfortably swift, rate. Since the last issue, we’ve developed new online columns (celebrated here in Francesca Brooks’ interview with painter Chris Stevens) and spent a lot of time between the leaves of hectic diaries, organising the necessaries for a performance by live artist Robert Luzar. Amidst this, Anna Mcnay made it to the Whitechapel to witness a retrospective of works by Gillian Wearing, one of the most celebrated YBA’s, and Holly Howarth reflected on her time at the conference for the British Museum’s exhibition Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam. Also n this issue, and for the first time, we welcome a contribution from Marlo Kronberg on Jordan Sullivan ahead of his first solo exhibit Natural History at Underline Gallery in New York. Phew. At least next time we meet we would have seen something of summer. Enjoy!
Front cover Swallowed By The Shadow That Glow (2010) © Linda Persson
C o n t e n t 2 TINGLING FINGERS 4-7 Gillian Wearing at Whitechapel 8-11 HAJJ 12-17 L I N D A P E R S S O N 18 –25 Jordan Sullivan 26 29 Interview: Chris Stevens
GILLIAN WEARING AT WHITECHAPEL ANNA MCNAY Sacha, a young woman in her 20s, is cowering on the floor in her underwear. An older woman, her mother, comes over to comfort her, but then, unexpectedly, pulls her hair hard, shakes her, and pushes her back to the ground. She grabs the towel around the girl’s shoulders, almost suffocating her. The daughter’s cries are accompanied by those of a remorseful mother, looking on in shame, before holding her tight once more. They both cry together, hug, hold one another tight, laugh, all the while muffled by the deliberate sound distortion in the video recording. Then the cycle begins again. Chilling and disturbing, this scene of domestic violence, more commonly expected between a husband and wife, freezes one’s blood, transposed, as it is, on to a motherdaughter pairing, where one might expect unconditional and tender love. And such is the response the visitor might have to a great many pieces in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current survey show of over 100 works by Turner Prize winning artist Gillian Wearing. Famed for her vox populi interventions, such as the photo series Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say (1992-3) and the masked, video-taped confessions in Confess All On Video. Don’t Worry, You Will Be In Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian… (1994), Wearing plays with the distinction between public and private space and the masks which we all don every day before going outside to face the world. Her photographs and films
are honest and revealing, unsettling and brutal, since, ironically, by putting both herself and others behind masks and hiding the external self, she unreservedly reveals what’s going on inside. “Every place you go to, you don’t tell people the real you. […] At the end of the day, being that persona [is] better than being the real me, people knowing what the real me [is].” So says one young man in the 2009 film work, Secrets and Lies (2009), as he narrates his difficult and unpleasant life story of bullying, addictions, violence, prison – everything included, no holds barred. “I am depressed at the moment,” cries out another voice from inside a superficially laughing woman in one of the lesser known Signs images, of which several are being shown here for the first time. This clash between the outer shell and inner thought is exploited to the full by Wearing, as is the concept of artifice in general, highlighted, in particular, in one of her new works, People (2011), a framed bromide print based on 17th century Dutch flower painting, but, in this instance, a photograph of an artificial bouquet.
“It doesn’t seem as if she is trying to deceive“ This “dramaturgic dissonance” (as curator Daniel F. Herrmann labels it) also comes to the fore in another hard hitting video work, Prelude (2000), which shows black and white footage of a laughing young woman called Lindsey, set to the voiceover of her twin, telling the tale of how, just two weeks later, Lindsey was found dead from pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver, having been a heavy street drinker. Even Children Are Not Spared. 10-16 (1997) is a series of videos with seven young adults speaking frankly about their dreams, fears, and desires. Their voices, lipsynched to adult actors, produce an uneasy outcome, as we recognise the loss and waste of unfulfilled lives and abandoned aspirations. ►
Upstairs the visitor is confronted with another kind of performance: a series of large-scale photographic portraits, on the one side of the gallery of Wearing’s biological family, and, on the opposite wall, of her “spiritual” family. Except none of these is genuine. Despite the iconic and recognisable poses of Andy Warhol, Diane Arbus, and Claude Cahun, to name but a few, each and every one of the pictures is of Wearing herself, made up in an intricate and painstakingly constructed silicon mask. Even the one of her brother, Richard, bare-chested, tattooed, and brushing his long hair, is, in fact, Wearing herself, and with not one bit of photo-shopping either. Once again, Wearing is not shy
to point out the contradiction between veracity and deceit, and goes so far as to include a mask of herself in the hand of the subject in Me as Cahun Holding a Mask of My Face (2012). It doesn’t seem as if she is trying to deceive, nor to convince the viewers to believe something to be real which is not, but, perhaps, simply, to question assumptions made on surface appearance and first glance alone. After all, no one is entirely who or what they seem or choose to reveal to the world. To quote from another participant in Secrets and Lies: “I think I’ve lied too much, actually. I’m not entirely sure when I’m telling the truth, or if my emotions are true.” Is anyone?
1) Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say HELP, 1992-3 2) Self Portrait at 17 Years Old, 2003 3) Me as Cahun Holding a Mask of My Face, 2012 All Š Gillian Wearing
A month later, Holly Howarth reflects on the two day conference for the Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam exhibition at the British Museum
The biggest exhibition to date on Islam in Britain, the British Museum’s Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam attempts to explore one of its most fundamental rituals in what is the largest human migration to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The multifarious artefacts on display, including travelogues, sundials, upholstery from the Ka’ba (the square building within the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca), and various travelling implements, document this global pilgrimage. The Hajj is revealed not only as a major political function, but also as an ancestral link and foundation for major infrastructural developments.
serting the political investiture in the Hajj as shown from the immediate successors of the Prophet to the mid-thirteenth century Ayyabid rulers, when this holy site was within their jurisdiction. Harry Munt drew on one important document from an Umayyad chancellery official, ‘Abd al-Hamid bin Yahya, which survived through a later literary source, announcing the successful completion of a caliph’s (probably Hisham bin ‘Abd al-Malik) pilgrimage.
Journey to the Heart of Islam looks at peoples’ relationship with spirituality and the exhibition aims to show the Hajj as archetypal, rather than atypical to, earthly value systems that have existed globally for centuries. The British Museum hopes to encourage our pre-dominantly secular society to consider pilgrimage beyond its religious discourse. As stated in the accompanying catalogue, seeking solace in ritualistic programmes is a means of overcoming the dissatisfaction and tragedy in everyday life. Pilgrimage goes beyond veneration and the Hajj is an example of an inane determination for a better life.
took form in the research offered by Dionisius A. Agius and Charles Le Quesne on the cargo-pilgrim vessels and ports on the Western coast of the Red sea, respectively. In many ways it was these seafaring aspects that provided the most comprehensive survey of medieval life lived in conjunction with the Hajj. Even though both archaeological evidence and written sources suggest that the Hajj influenced political, social and economic forces shaped coastal areas such as Tur, Qulzum (Suez) and Ayadab, such places were not entirely dependable on the pilgrim route. Even though Agius referred to Muslim writers’ accounts as, at times, lacking in nautical information on pilgrim-merchant ships, they can provide us with an idea as to how people saw the sea and the lands beyond their own. ►
The intention of these lectures was to demonstrate, chronologically, that the Hajj was an impetus for consolidating leadership over the The conference covered these aspects through umma (community) and later used to justify auarchitecture, archaeology, literature, photogthority. Kennedy’s particular attention to the Abraphy, material culture and history, with contri- basid reign (c.750-1517 C.E.) and their subsebutions from international academics, scholars, quent establishment of the route from Kufa and first-hand accounts from pilgrims. Through demonstrated that Mecca had become a major pilgrimage, politics and personal journey, the ex- political centre. Not only did Hajj offer a commuhibition draws reflects thousands of years of nicative outreach for the larger Muslim populaphysical negotiation and spiritual reckoning; an tion, but it was also used to implement this audievent that since the seventh century has contin- ence as witnesses to law-making. ued without noticeable interruption. A fascinating inclusion to the conference
The conference began with introductions from both the British Museum’s Department of the Middle East’s Keeper, Jonathan Tubb, and M.A.S. Abdel Haleem from the School of Oriental and African Studies. Hugh Kennedy began by presenting a wealth of evidence as-
Chaired by Marcus Milwright, the latter part of the day delved into the archaeological aspects of the Hajj. Andrew Peterson’s interesting exploration into the lost fort of Mafraq, built during the Ottoman occupation in Syria, reconstructed a period which saw the region regain some pre-eminence due to its midway point between Mecca and Constantinople. Peterson’s research on this revival offered examples of how the Syrian Hajj route became host to a number of facilities including khans (accommodation), mosques and forts, as well as re-appropriators of older architecture, including forts in Ma’an and Unaiza, which evidence suggests were founded in Pre-Roman and Early Islamic periods. University of East Anglia was represented by Sam Nixon, who recently arrived from UCL to take up the position of Postdoctoral Researcher in African Archaeology at the Sainsbury Research Unit. His paper examined the gradual involvement West African states had with Islam from the 11th Century and the subsequent transformations these communities experienced as a result of Hajj. Gradually rulers who undertook the voyage returned with ambitions to replicate this journey through consumerism (Tadmekka ‘a market resembling Mecca’ in Mali) and currency (the 12th C. Almoravid gold coinage).
wood Professorship of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College, and the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair in Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, gave thrilling talks on visual programmes, encompassing inscription and architecture. Bloom eloquently tackled concepts of ‘influence’, referring to them as ‘translated memories in architecture’. Drawing examples of oft-overlooked structural similarities seen at sites like the 9th Century site at Samarra in Iraq and Cairo’s Mosque of Ibn Tulun (completed in 879 C.E.), both of which demonstrate analogous stucco designs, Bloom asserted that these buildings relied on personal experience and familiarity before the introduction and dependence on plans; only really achievable by constructors who were related to others of the same employment. Having read recently again Nasser Rabbat’s article ‘The Militarization of Taste in Medieval Bilad al-Sham’ in Hugh Kennedy’s edited Muslim Military Architecture in Greater Syria from the Coming of Islam to the Ottoman Period [2005]; it would be interesting to compare some of Bloom’s examples of religious architecture to military or secular sites. The article suggests that architectural continuity could be a reflection not towards specific, established patterns but rather to a much larger, advantageous programme of construction.
The Kadhima Project led by Durham University’s Derek Kennet and Andrew Blair, and Brian Ulrich from Shippensburg University, was a case in point as to the difficulty in access amidst the current political climate and environmental erosion. It was a shame that the paper given by Sami Abd al-Malik from the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, was not accompanied by a translator, as the paper offered a detailed analysis of khans on the Al-Hajj al-Misri road during the Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
Bloom used this theme of influence within the context of nine-bay mosques which appear in the eighth and ninth century, four of which exist in Saudi Arabia, including Darb Zubaydah. Perhaps Bloom’s examples could support Rabbat’s theory on the development of design motifs in architecture. He states that once social structures became more secure within settlements, rulers began adopting a conglomerate style consisting of both indigenous and foreign architectural programmes, eventually departing from homogenised design [p.103].
On the second day, Sheila Blair and Jonathon Bloom, both holders of the Norma Jean Calder-
The role of aesthetics was introduced into the conference by Sheila Blair and her fascinating account of the inscriptions at Mecca with the Qur’anic passage that states the Ka’ba as the first house of worship owing to God, which recurrently appears in other holy spaces. Blair affirms that visual representation precedes textual resource but reiterated a point made in her seminal book Islamic Calligraphy [2006] that a large part of Islamic aesthetics owed much to the transcription of God’s word. Nile Green’s ‘Steam Hajjis: Urdu and Persian travelogues from the age of industrialisation’. He provided an interesting account on the transformed experiences of pilgrimages. His examples ranged from the first Indian Ocean steamship (1825), and voyages made by nonMuslims, to the first train service in Asia, from Bombay in 1853, and the founding of the British India Steam Navigation Company in 1856. The development of cosmopolitan port cities and subsequent amalgamations of European languages into everyday Arabic have had a lasting effect on these routes. ‘Travel to Makka from Oman in the Premotorised Period’ was presented by Janet C.E Watson and Mohammed Ahmed Bakheit al-Mahri, who provided a personal account of his journey to Mecca. The lack of translation was disappointingly out of reach for most of the audience but nevertheless, al-Mahri’s talk gave an extraordinary insight into the transformed spaces of the Hajj dictated by the different modes of transportation pre-motorised and motorised experienced by his community. Concluding the conference on the Saturday, thoughts were turned to European colonialism and the further implications bought about with the advent of the twentieth-century. Eric Tagliacozzo provided a rather grizzly picture of the health issues and protocols put in place to deal with the impact of epidemics like cholera amongst Hajjis. Jon Slight’s ‘Hajj and the Raj:
from Thomas Cook to Bombay’s Protector of Pilgrims’ offered an interesting insight into the relationship between colonialist, the colonised and ‘pauper pilgrims’, in which imperial conflict and immigration continually tested British powers. Benjamin C. Brower gave a more brutalistic account of the affects of French colonialism in Algeria from 1830 to 1962 and the staggered attempts at controlling, and even quashing, the Hajj in the nineteenth century. The talk was a reminder of the politicised emblem to which the Hajj is akin to, in as much as a pious expression of faith. From an art historical perspective, this last day provided a more substantial exploration into the Hajj’s visual representation. Referring to the series of manuscripts and photographs currently on display in the exhibition, the British Library’s Muhammad Isa Waley, Jan Just Witkam from the University of Leiden, and Tim Stanley from the V&A, bought together a series of papers focusing on the Hajj as depicted through souvenirs, like the 16th C. Persian Futuh al-Haramayn text, and personal accounts, including the Tuhfet ul-Haremeyn by Yusuf Nabi (1642-1712). The conference was a comprehensive and wellstructured event that seemed to appeal successfully to those either seeking academic fulfilment or wanting to substantiate a general interest. The exhibition has done an admirable job in avoiding the obvious political narratives that so often beset attempts to ‘humanise’ Islam and its followers. Understanding the Hajj as both a political emblem and a personal programme of enlightenment reveals a longstanding and multifarious journey that has had a profound effect on history.
LINDA PERSSON Often described as a ‘detective’, Swedish multimedia artist Linda Persson is certainly lead by a desire to explore, question and probe. Having studied sculpture at Chelsea, and gaining an MA in the subject in 2005, Persson has since extended her platform to video and performance. She is founder of XRAY, has worked in collaboration with writer Liam Sprod since 2011 on a project called NOW|THEN|SOON and is a Mejan Resident at the Royal Institute of Arts in Stockholm. Her more recent body of work presents itself as interventions and experiments, documented in film, which utilise superseded technology and obscure information such as ‘dead text’. ►
In abundance in Persson’s studies is the tan-
live too fast and do not take time to apprec
gling of temporality with premeditated out-
the present.
comes; installations such as Push By The Air
Persson repeats processes that signify tem
That Blow (2010) demand a permanent circumstance, whilst Taciturn (2011) prolongs a
rality which illustrate and reflect on this mo
In her video Re, TUrn, Dis, Ruption, STab
complex threat. Persson states “Taciturn, with (2012), Persson states that “the object her its meaning reserved or uncommunicative, is becomes an extension of the hand, of the here bound up in a rope whilst the stone hov-
terance, the image, but neither the line no
ers above the ground. It announces a fragility
matter is certain. By using Ugaritic script (a
although it is potentially dangerous if let loose. extinct Northwest Semitic language) as a t It’s mute at first sight but it is also a part of his- plate for form, this marginal historic langua toric and geologic materiality.” In exhibitions,
has been revisited and used to deface the
Taciturn sits along side a drawing of the extinct face of the video. Maybe it looks like a sen
Northwest Semitic language ‘Ugratic’’, forming tence but it is nonsense.” a poetic isolation of Persson’s curiosity for the Most engaging is Persson’s performative s precarious. The way that she works with fragiliies; Trace / Écart (2010) acts out a type of ty highlights a popular 21st century theme that ual Chinese whisper, experimenting with a a large majority of cultures today are too busy,
ciate
code created entirely by shapes drawn onto the artists back, which she attempts
mpo-
to recreate in front of her on paper. By
ode.
way of connecting with the sensitivity of
b
re ut-
r the
an
her skin, and using herself as a product of her creation, Persson paths her fascination for unusable information and makes use of it.
tem-
age
e sur-
n-
Perrsson has forthcoming exhbiitions at at the Royal Institute of Arts (Kungliga
stud-
Konsthögskolan) spring 2012 and with
f vis-
Pavilion Projects, Margate 2012 and
a
Haninge Konsthall, Sweden 2013.
1) Re, TUrn, Dis, Ruption, STab (2012) video 2) Tactirun, detail from (2011) installation 3) Push By The Air That Blow (2010) installation 4) Trace / Écart (2010) performance / video All © Linda Persson
Jordan
marlo k
“You can lose yourself on where you’re going, what yo been looking for your who places I passed through while
Sullivan
kronberg
the road. You can forget ou love, and whatever it is you’ve ole life. These are the e I was forgetting.�
Recently, Brooklyn-based artist Jordan Sullivan has been garnering international attention for his quietly transcendent multi-media meditations on memory, transience, and home. In his first solo New York exhibition “Natural History” opening at Underline Gallery on May 17th, Sullivan explores the force and ritual of memory by recontextualising his grandparents’ courtship during WWII in terms of his own personal history. What happens to a lifetime’s worth of memories when we die and even our memorials turn to dust? In what ways can memories and narratives be appropriated then transformed? Why, in this life of impermanence, do we even remember in the first place? “I’m interested in the ways we remember.” explains the artist. “We keep scrapbooks, we hang pictures on our walls. We lay flowers on graves. This early human society in Middle East used to bury their dead in the walls of their homes. We also build statues, monuments, we mark days on calendars. What happens to these memorials when they are gone, when we are gone, when no one is left to remember them, when no more prayers are said?” For “Natural History” Sullivan repurposes tangible objects that survived WWII -- some belonging to his grandparents and some found -- and presents them in tandem with memorial artefacts from his own lifetime. These two narratives, separated by almost seventy years, force viewers to explore the nature of their own memories and question where collective historical consciousness ends and individual consciousness begins. How did you decide that you wanted to examine and reinterpret your grandparents’ courtship during WWII in an exhibition that explores autobiographical memory? The exhibition coincidentally fell on Memorial Day, and my grandfather, who was in the war, had just passed away. I was already looking at my familial history a lot then, but with his death I just started feeling a lot more emotional about the whole thing and it seemed like a good time to honour him and my grandmother and the other men and women who survived what they had. I always find that personal stories can become metaphors for much larger issues. A family history can look a lot like the history of a country, and a relationship between two people can have the same attributes as the war or peace that can develop between nations. How does this body of work continue or diverge from your previous work? This body of work is actually much more in line with what I was doing as an art student and in my early twenties, but I see everything I do as connected. I’m always wrestling with the same themes and feelings. I just try to do a better job articulating those ideas with each show. With each new body of work I try and take a step toward something unknown. The more a subject scares me the more I know I’m on the right track. Many of the sculptural components in this exhibition are WWII relics -- some once belonging to your grandparents and others found. It’s really interesting how you’re repurposing these material fragments of WWII to piece together your own immaterial perceptions of a time in history. Can you tell us the stories behind some of these artefacts and how you’re reframing them? One object is a soldiers duffle bag which I print pictures of WW2 POWs on. A duffle bag is what a soldier leaves home with, it contains his world for a time. This is a very beautiful and devastating idea. Printing the POW images on this empty bag is a gesture to memorialize the ones who didn’t come home. The piece also explores this notion of worldly possessions, questioning what we can live with and what we can live without. After this life what are we left with? Our homes, our clothes, our skin, it’s all dust and ash.►
I think I can speak generally when I say that despite many of us now living on this Earth not actually being alive during WWII, other peoples’ narratives and memories have become our own. How are you exploring the power of the collective sense of historical consciousness in this exhibition? I’m interested in the ways we remember. We keep scrapbooks, we hang pictures on our walls. We lay flowers on graves. This early human society in the Middle East used to bury their dead in the walls of their homes. We also build statues, monuments, and mark days on calendars. What happens to these memorials when they are gone, when we are gone, when no one is left to remember them, when no more prayers are said? What happens to our individual memories? Our collective memory? What happens to our love and all the energy we put into this world? Maybe I’m so obsessed with memory because it is something that no cop or government or anyone can take away from us. Memories are the catalysts for so many emotions. It’s such a mysterious thing that we are able to recall anything at all. I think it’s extremely important that, collectively, we remember these events like World War II, that we honor them, and attempt to understand them in as many ways as we can. My aim in this show isn’t necessarily to understand or explain war, it’s much more personal. I’m interested in how we remember, what I remember. I’m interested in honoring the dead in some small way. Tell me a bit about the personal segment of this exhibition. This part features burnt audio reels of all the sins you’ve ever committed, written recollections, sculptures, collages, and photos. How do you think these aspects come together to comprise an idea of your own history? I won't know until I see these objects together in a room. A personal history is like a landmass or a body of water, it’s a tectonic plate that’s always shifting, so it needs to be examined and reexamined. The truth of a personal history is always slightly different depending on what light it’s in. Nothing is definite or concrete. But it's important to me -- no matter how these objects relate to one another -- that they come together to tell a story, or a fragment of a story, or become work that someone feels something for. I don’t necessarily believe that my own history is particularly interesting or wild -- it’s actually fairly mundane -- but I think that the contrast with the war story is sort of nice. Hopefully, someone will look at the personal part of this exhibition and in turn relate it to his or her own experience. Did you learn anything new about yourself putting this exhibition together? I’m always rediscovering how important memory and family and people are to me. I also learned how scared I am of dying and all my memories and the love and the people in my life just disappearing. I have to believe that somehow these things carry on. Your favorite memory. This can be anything. I’m 15 years old, my brother’s 17. We’re listening to records in his bedroom in our house in Livonia, MI. Those were the best days ever. What’s next? I have a book of short stories I want to finish.
chris stevens less than two weeks to go and a small catalogue of Chris Stevens paintings will be hung in numerous windows in Reading town centre. Francesca Brooks interviews the painter ahead of his solo exhibition, CONTEXT, curated by roves and roams.
1) The Age of Reason (2011) 2) The Dogs (2001) All © Chris Stevens
If you hide your art gallery down a trendy
ing settings. There are a lot of parallels
side-street, and make it accessible only by
going on between his work and this exhibi-
ringing a bell at your imposingly-tall black
tion; marrying urban Reading locations with
doors, you shouldn’t be surprised if you
archetypal skill, and experimentation with
find yourself visited and revisited by a very
class and stereotyping.’
particular crowd. Perhaps this is what roves and roams and Jelly meant when they decided to name their town-wide exhibition of works by artist, Chris Stevens, ‘Context’.
The
‘exhibition’, although stretched over a city the term becomes looser, subverts our expectations of contemporary art’s contexts. Explaining her motivations as curator of the project, Lucy Hobbs writes: ‘I wanted to show Stevens as his paintings are visually stunning. I thought, equally to his approach to subject, that it would be intriguing to experiment with presenting a series in vary-
We have become accustomed to white cubes and other appropriately sterile viewing chambers, quiet contexts dictated by a scene of gallery -goers, arts professionals and artists.
Lucy
Hobbs explains that the intention of ‘Context’ was to ‘explore platforms which engage with the work as well as present and support it.’ Stevens’ exhibition will have scattered contextual references which can be picked up by anyone passing a shop-front, or following a street wall to its end, and it will seek out a different audience by impressing itself upon residents.
Can you tell me a little bit about how ‘Context’ came about, and what you find particularly interesting about the project? I was approached by Lucy at roves and roams to see if I would be interested in showing in Reading as part of their on-going project. I agreed for two reasons; firstly because having been a student there I have a soft spot for Reading and secondly because I am very interested in the concept of showing in alternative
that I work there is an accessibility to my paintings which helps to communicate the ideas behind them. I like the idea that people not educated in the visual arts can respond but I am not trying to be an artist of the people; no form of art can ever appeal to everybody. While making the paintings my prime concern are the formal elements of the painting process without the underlying political motivation dictating its development. The message behind the work is always there as a subconscious undercurrent.
spaces. I like the traditional gallery space but I also find the whole notion a little strange. We go to the gallery as if it is a place of worship and treat the art we see there with a strange reverence. I always find it rather sad that people walk around exhibitions as a matter of duty and pass by much of the work with just a cursory glance. We expect
And how does this process of ‘making’ a painting work? When I make a painting I enjoy the process of putting narratives together by juxtaposing disparate elements which come together like a random collage. Very often the result of this process means a good deal of editing and reworking of the composition.
to see art there and ironically much of it is taken for granted. When art is seen out of
What is it about portraiture which fascinates
this context it is more surprising and can
you so much?
have a far greater impact. The idea of showing in shop windows and disused buildings appeals to me. Several years ago a group of seven artists including myself held an exhibition in the Tobacco Dock shopping Centre. We took over
I have always enjoyed painting people but not so much in the sense of portraiture but in using them like actors on the stage. As a result it is not important to get a likeness although the people in the paintings like to see one.
an unoccupied unit and put on a show which was very successful. It was quite a different au-
What interests you, or draws you to a particu-
dience to the usual gallery crowd and this is
lar character in your painting?
important to me and what I am trying to achieve in my work.
What are the social and political motivations behind your work? The underlying idea of societies stereotyping and bigotry is a constant theme in my work and has been since the early eighties. While this remains constant I take the opportunity to address issues, which affect me. Due to the way
The people I paint are friends, family or people I come into contact with on a day to day basis. It is only recently that I have started to paint people who I do not know. This does not happen very often but I like the idea of emulating the culture that we live in where we are observed continually through CCTV. It is strange being the voyeur and I do not envisage making this a regular way of working but it suits the purpose of my work at the moment.
roves and roams 5 was made possible by these wonderful folk.
Anna McNay Holly Howarth Jordan Sullivan Francesca Brooks
we’d like to thank the following artists Linda Persson (www.lindapersson.org) Chris Stevens (www.chrisstevens.co)
roves and roams links www.rovesandroams.com www.facebook.com/rovesandroamsproject www.twitter.com/rovesandroams www.vimeo.com/rovesandroams
Thanks.