Relationships.
Relationships are such a vital point to my work, I thought it’s best to mention my relationship with two of my favourite artists: Michael Dean, an artist from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who has an exhibition opening at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds this month which I am very excited for. Dean’s work, along with David Hockney are probably my biggest influences at the minute, so I thought I’d write a little about my relationship with their work.
I’ll start with the secular saint of contemporary painting, David Hockney. At the RA show of his work, I experienced something I haven’t felt in quite a while, an affinity, and a real connection with the work. Whether they triggered something from young visits to Saltaire Salt Mill & the surrounding area that I now can’t remember, or whether the images that were constructed had so much graft behind them that I couldn’t help but feel a strong connection. The relationship I’ve had with Hockney’s work has always been joyous; I can remember adoring him aged 14, and adoring him now. His work is, as he said in 93′ at Tate, “pretty” and so accessibility has never been a problem, something I have struggled with. I think accessibility is not a necessity, but for me, is. I cherish the relationship (if any) that the audience has with the work, bad or good, because my work is so personal, to hear outside opinions, whatever they may be, is very beneficial for my progress in a way.
Dean was born in 77′, which makes him about 35. He isn’t bound to one media; he works in photography, sculpture, text and probably many other outlets. He is the kind of artist I want to be at 35 (although I’m fully aware its an awful thing to compare yourself to other artists), still pushing what the limits of sculpture and writing can be, and what they can do together. His book of what I’ll describe as ‘alternative-prose’, “Mountains and Triangles” is so refreshing, and makes the reader see the space in between the text with a newfound importance, very austere, and enrapturing, to the point where it is no longer a book, but a work of visual art in its own right. My relationship with Dean’s work is that he pulls off almost flawlessly an aspect of my practice that has been battled out since I was in college, intimacy. The intimacy of his work is what makes it so interesting; it has a personal flux that leaves him in a very vulnerable state, but that’s what makes it, the symmetry of the artist and the audience, the work and the space.
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