I had confirmation today that my video installation idea for the show in St Petersburg will receive funding – really great news, but now a lot of work to make it a reality.
I plan to project a series of my ‘mirrored’ videos on to the floor/walls and fabric (cotton) hanging from the ceiling. The viewers will walk through the material and be covered in the images from the video making the viewing experience interactive and participatory.
I also plan to use the video-stills in other spaces – more on that soon.
I’ve been busy recently, completing the new series on aluminium in my studio at Magdalen Road, printmaking at Oxford Printmakers, preparing some new videos for a show in St Petersburg and completing some large paintings for a show at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford with a friend from the studios (starts tomorrow).
I have a meeting with a doctor at the Department of Oncology, Oxford University, next week to discuss the possibility of having access to images of cancer cells; I’d like to make a new body of work. Cancer cells are surprisingly beautiful and worlds in themselves – I hope to make a series of works in a similar vein to the ‘beautiful’ and ‘seductive’ images of the camp at Rivesaltes which also hide a horrific dark side.
The subject-matter is quite close to home and I’m hoping the process will not be too difficult for me to deal with, it may even be cathartic.
I feel that the carborundum prints that I’m currently making are a farewell to the work based on Rivesaltes, the end of a chapter, I may revisit the subject, but now is a good time to start something new.
