- Venue
- Spike Island
- Location
- South West England
David Mackintosh does drawings on A1 paper and lots of them. Closeted in the studio for long periods of time he produces a large number of images placed in the centre of the page using gouache. These are then edited down while the rest are destroyed.
The current exhibition in Gallery 1 and the Resource Room at Spike Island in Bristol is showing work dating back to 2002, but mostly works of this type done in 2005/6. New for this show however, are his two 2008 commissioned works – a leap into using coloured paper for his 3D Drawing FrameThing and the animation – Me, You, The Cosmos and Other People. Bristol had a preview of both these works when Mackintosh gave an artist’s talk at the Arnolfini last year, so it’s fitting that they should be shown in the city.
Seen on its own a David Mackintosh drawing can seem like an artist making a random mark, albeit placed precisely, yet put together in a gallery space themes and issues begin to emerge. There is a strong undercurrent of darkness in some images such as Gentleman with Pox, where a religious type of figure features a red spot. People seem cloaked, hooded, hidden. Yet at the same time a sense of humour emerges in such works as People Will Notice Me. Sex never seems very far away as in Two Pairs of Legs and Conjoined Dancing.
Drawing Frame Thing is a 3D frame of oak bars in the middle of the gallery, on it are various pieces of differently coloured paper of different sizes, not only has the artist sidestepped his trademark white A1 paper but also the size. Images such as bears and trees feature here. The frame allows the viewer to see the works at different angles and with different juxtapositions, the latter being a key component of this exhibition.
The animation suits Mackintosh’s drawing practice as it allows him to add further dimensions of time, narrative and movement. The simple animation is a collage of short pieces of moving drawings: a railway journey, a voice over, a shape turns into a bird and flies away, a woman breathing, a peeping eye, a couple having intercourse, a forest burning down…each has its own integrity yet adds up to an exploration of a world where things happen, then change, and then something else happens.
The exhibition was curated by Simon Morrissey and coincides with the publication of Mackintosh's new monograph, Imagine you are in a room of blind fools desperately grasping at Nothing (Aye Aye Books).
