RE-VISIT, RE-VIEW. PART ONE
Over the years I’ve made a huge amount of work which I’ve not resolved. I always thought I had a high failure rate, but actually, as time goes by, I realise there are lots of pieces which still feel relevant and right – they’re just not finished. I think, like many artists, I have always been guilty of rushing on too fast to the next new, exciting idea, without really interrogating the last one.
One of my post-MA resolutions was to go slower; take more time, invest more thought, and to re-view some of that work which is not yet anything, which I’ve never shown, but which could and should become something. With this in mind I proposed two pieces of work for the East Sussex Open at Towner which were conceived 2 years ago in a project at the Redoubt Fortress in Eastbourne, one of whihc had been shown once, the other is new.
The new piece, a wall drawing, Spread, has developed slowly, little by little, since I took the original photographs of invading roots in a semi-subterranean room in the Napoleonic fort. I made the drawing in a corner in a liminal space adjacent to the gallery. Although I was reasonably satisfied with it, I can see now that I’d like this work to develop further; I’d somehow like to remove it a step or two away from the realistic representation which it exists as at the moment. So this work must be revisited and re-viewed some more. I’m coming to realise that as part of a natural evolution, each piece of work can become the next.
