- Venue
- Oldknows Studio Group
- Location
- East Midlands
Time and space to redevelop. A place to play and reform ideas from a time before; a time where the end could not be obtained and the final point could not be found.
The circumstances; that here we had a residency and a discussion with no final exhibition; seemed to run through the core of why we were there and what this piece was about. It was tainted, or more positively, decorated with this idea of finality and where this not only found a place within Alexander Stevenson’s work but also within all artist’s work as a whole. “Is it important to finish work?”
First of all, we were presented with the nostalgic sound of chalk on a blackboard. The reminiscent aural pleasure or absolute detest of a time that is most certainly becoming a past state, what with whiteboards and wipeable pens, and projected computer screens. As we were sent back into our former states as young school boys and girls, we sat attentively on our slightly precarious wooden chairs and watched the film projected onto this ever-so-familiar blackboard.
Projected chalk words written across this board and rubbed out by a phantom hand; re-written, erased and another repeated over the top. Each letter was written out upon the physical board which showed the remnants of this writing. Bewildering and almost fantastical unknown words, with capital letters, finding their place and then being removed into a dusty white smear. And once this DVD projection was played through we were presented with another. The words had been left behind and now we were given images. Pieces of hide stretched out and the evidence of past ink drawing visible yet scratched out repeatedly. And this phantom hand reappeared. It began to draw these creatures, strange as they were. They appeared before us, were erased, yet still visible and then drawn over. The residue left behind. These human like creatures that must have a background, yet they left us all in complete unsurety and uncertainty of what it was we were watching and experiencing. Unlike a performance piece where the remnants of what has been is left behind, here we were given what has come before and this then was projected over the product.
After this, the introduction came, a little piece on what this residency was about; about working things through; and thus this discussion showed itself.
How long do you or should you spend on something? This wish for completion that we all face each day, having to go back and finish it, whether it be a masterpiece in oils, or a half drunk cup of coffee and a knawed at biscuit misled when the doorbell rang. These things hang over us and we always find ourselves coming back to them; a hour, a week a month, a year, a decade, these ideas that we once focussed intently upon always return and niggle their way back into the view infront of our eyes. The debris of our unfinished business is always waiting for us to happen upon once again, or occaisionally in a more brutal way, trip up on and fall flat on our face into it. Everything is continuing at becoming something else all the time. We start again and constantly we are creating the same pieces of work.
And with this, I am brought back into the meaning of the work presented in front of us. As the enthusiastic artist in question, sitting upon the pipe along the wall, bounces slightly in gesture with a right arm, and the vibrations run along the metal and bang upon my uneasy chair, I am forced into returning, into needing my questions answered, in needing to know the background of the work and why and who these characters are. The characters in image and in letter form. And what they want from me, what are they requesting? What is their place, and therefore, mine in response. They cannot be there just to be glanced at and then ignored.
We are then reluctantly let in to this secret, into this knowledge almost hidden behind the piece. Both the words and the images are mythological Gods in the midlands, starting with earlier ones which are then scrubbed out and next proceeds to take over. Such interesting background and the thoughts on Gods, faith and progression in religion are found at the beginning of this, yet we found ourselves confused without this knowledge. Perchance this is hinting at something, of the history in all that we believe, that so often we are so focussed on the here and now that the paths that have had to be trodden in order for us to be where we are; are lost and forgotten.
Is it necessary to know what lies behind these words, these images? Are we not initially just given a title and a piece of artwork to form our ideas, to unite with? Here artwork finds itself side by side with archaeology. Records of artefacts, of these God’s are sometimes just a title, a name. The possibility of what surrounds them and how they have changed over time is in many cases nonexistent. There may be slight references, but often they are theories created and rationally devised by humans hundreds of years later. We are developing these God’s, these artefacts with the touch of our present day hands. We are looking upon them with eyes that have developed and ideas that may not have been there when they were created. Just as any person to view it, even a day after it was formed, is in the same position as us, the audience. We create and elaborate for ourselves, in order to find some sort of continuance throughout history.
Perhaps the earlier ideas of coming to an end, of finishing a thing, making it finite, often becomes far too painful are reflected here in the concept that it started upon. The pretence that it is now over with can never be possible when you challenge, question or even just look into theories, faiths, religions or myths. We found ourselves discussing what this residency was about, and I felt we had gone off track. But when it was returned to, I found myself finding such connections that I may never have found within it without the previous wonders ‘offtrack’.
