Work on POWER the show at Snape Maltings continues, it’s an admin moment – price lists, interviews, social media activity. But I’m also making new work, which I love to do, anything to disrupt the experience and seek to be in a place of not knowing. The interviews are interesting in that they provide moments of reflection on what has been a full-on year. Some are listed here
Q: How would you describe your
work?
The work is a way to mediate
existence in this world, this is, I hope a two-way street. From my point of
view the work is made as a way to make sense of the world. But I want the work to
leave space for the viewer, to enable them to stop and reflect. To facilitate
moments of contemplation. My practice often sets out to reposition and redirect. The work is a
question rather than an answer, a collaboration in the mind and hand between me
as maker and audience as reader/viewer.
Q: What about the residency with
Sizewell Creative interested you?
The residency with First light, a
great organisation whose primary visibility is the free festival on the beach
in Lowestoft but their engagement with the community has extended to this
project and they have been wonderfully supportive. I spend my life as an artist
travelling to work in different parts of the UK and this was a chance to be
involved in something local that was going to affect me personally. I have been
working within Sizewell C bearing witness to the changes that are taking place,
responding, artistically, to both the construction and ultimately the human
side of this project. It was almost as if I’ve been waiting for an opportunity
like this since I moved to Suffolk in 1990, when I would go to watch the
building of Sizewell B. I remember reflecting at this huge undertaking, which
at its core was about utilising something so small and yet so fundamental to
our existence. Spontaneous, collaborative tattooing that I have been engaged in
with @jim_skins over the past 2 years added another connection. The lines and
marks on my body are similar to the lines of evidence created during a neutrino
particle interaction event within atomic energy. Finally, I live in a house that was created
in opposition to Nuclear Power, designed by Clive Latimer, an anarchist,
pacifist, and a vocal member of Stop Sizewell B. I have recently realised that
I had been living this residency for longer than I knew.
Q: What is your medium of choice
and why?
Each
opportunity has a different need or outcome dependant on the circumstances of
the situation. I'm generally interested in systems, the idea of control and
power. This manifests itself in a range of different types of artworks. I have developed
a practice where physical outcomes are dependent on the opportunities
available; each individual context requires flexibility and so a huge range of
outcomes can be defined as my practice from permanent sculptural installations
to ephemeral giveaways and presentations. Within this
residency I have made assemblages, sculptures, 2D and 3D prints, films and
gifs. I trained as a graphic designer, so the work often uses design processes
within a fine art context. I think I am happiest when there are practical
processes to be negotiated between the idea and the final artwork.
Q: What are your processes and
where did you find inspiration for your exhibition?
Sizewell C is such a huge and
complex activity that inspiration can come from anywhere and everything. Going
on site one is dwarfed by the scale of the physical activity taking place, the
endeavour is truly monumental. I have also been fascinated by the systems
involved in preparing the site and its potential workforce, the logistics,
gannt charts, the language used within the legal paperwork, which is its own
mountain to climb. Talking with people who work there has been inspiring, I
felt that their worlds required engagement, be it the archaeologists, the
Chaplin, branding managers, data analysists or the community engagement team.
Then there is the space the work will be exhibited, Snape. Although the work I’ve
made is not site specific the specificity of the spaces will be considered when
I am hanging the work, attempting to collaborate with the quality of the spaces
to enhance the work.
Q: If you could own any piece of
art what would you own and why?
This is a challenging question,
my walls are quite small and would not accommodate most of the art I love and
anyway the answer changes with each art experience; I have just been to MONA in
Tasmania and encountered The Divine Comedy by Alfredo Jarr, a 30-minute art
experience that was transformative. But within the context of this residency, I
would have to pick The Ambassadors by Holbein. The work is clever, something I
admire, a clever idea executed with skilled craft. The realistic portraits
stare down at you, wearing fine robes and jewellery, you can feel the weight of
the fur and believe if you touched it, it would be real. The work appears to be
about the demonstration of power, but there is also discord and the meticulously
rendered objects displayed on a shelf have knowledge embedded in them. There
are so many clues and readings to be had if you take the time to look. If the
code is understood there are messages that can be decoded. The tools of science
are rendered with precision for all to see. Finally, there is the anamorphic
scull. Who could not be impressed by the artists potential to show off. I can
remember standing in just the right place in the National Gallery, I felt that
I had unlocked the knowledge and had become part of a parallel, hidden world
that was always there but unseen by most.
Q: Have you always wanted to be
an artist?
I don't think I could have
expressed it in those terms – I didn’t know what an artist was and I had never
met one. As a young child I loved drawing, I was always doing it, my art
teachers at school were interesting and showed interest in me. I felt that it
was the only place you could express yourself and were seen as a person. The
art room was a sanctuary from 70s comprehensive teaching. They played music and
appeared to exist in another world. I took myself off see art in galleries,
another type of sanctuary, and was drawn to arts transgressive nature, although
again I would not have had the words to explain why. But I was enquiring. Going
to a foundation course was an eye opener, there were people in the world like
me, I had found my people. Although without the government position on tuition fees
I don’t think I would have made the journey into the world of the art school in
London.
Q: What advice would you give to
aspiring artists?
This depends on if you want it as
a ‘career’. Making art is a glorious
activity, manifesting the ideas in your head into a physical being, wow…magic.
But as a job for this to happen you have to be doing it, not thinking about it,
planning to do it but be doing it. Eventually those around you will have given
up and you will be left doing it. This sounds brutal but having a job as an
artist is challenging. It is undervalued within the society we live in, so you
have to have belief that what you do is of value.
Q: Is there any piece in the
exhibition that you found particularly challenging to create?
As an artist I often I find
myself between positions and states of being. Artists are and have to be many
things to exist and to make work. Not fitting, slipping between is often an
artist’s default position. For artists, being invisible is often a mode of
operation especially when bearing witness, creating testimony to what has
happened. A person posited that this residency was like being a war artist, a
comment I initially rejected, I felt that building a power station has little
to do with the horrors of war. But I came to realise that the remark was not
about the physical situation, Sizewell as a battle ground, but rather an
observation on my role as a neutral observer. For this residency my
intention was to make work that people could find a connection to regardless of
their position on Sizewell C. As an
artist there are many challenges to making art, of choosing the right materials
and processes when making an idea, often one that is beautifully formed in your
mind, into a physical state. The technical aspects of 3D printing, the
frustration of AI prompts and negotiating access were all challenging. I often ask myself where the work is. I think
the work is around the work. The work of making the work happen is hidden. Conversations
create the work, and the conversation is embedded in the work, in the
negotiation of opportunities within what is a complex, hierarchical,
organisation run on strict rules and systems, with a specific outcome, the
building of a nuclear power station. A process diametrically in opposition to
that of an artist working randomly, and rhizomic, towards an unspecified goal.
But that is the job and it has been fascinating placing myself in a position
where I don’t know.
Dead and Alive - the book of essays by Zadie
Smith – is insightful and instructive – it’s like having a really
knowledgeable, interesting person standing next to you elevating your thoughts
on stuff you thought you knew about. onto screens About Fate – a
beautiful example of will-they-won’t-they. Trap House – madness about
taking control and delivering justice, with weapons. Forever –
interesting time-travel premise twist. His and Hers – talk about a twist
– twister madness, will you see any of it coming -fabulous?
