Ian Moss, ‘Fragile’, Mixed media, 1984. Photo: Robin McLean.
Me, burning things in the name of art in 1984. My lifelong fascination with ‘destruction as creation’ began as a child, when I would melt my toy cars away on an open fire … watching the mesmerising event … then the next day I would reclaim the formerly molten remains in the hearth. It was my secret …Later, I began to paint the effects of scorching, went on to scorch things with a blowtorch, made sculptures to scorch, then, ultimately, I made ‘ceremonial fires’ to completely destroy whatever it was I had made. This began the year after this image.