This responsive installation explores themes of loss, anger, responsibility, safety and security, censorship, and the boundaries between the artist, audience and space, after one of my paintings from the original installation disappeared from a group exhibition. For the final installation, I had three days from conception to hanging.
I was interested primarily in using cheap materials and a simple colour scheme to explore - within the contexts in which we see them - what we consider and value as art. The colours were also chosen for their symbolic context: the loud and jarring shades of pink and yellow set off the deep black to create a graphic visual shock to the system, accentuating the emotive quality that colours can evoke.
As a series, designed to be seen together as one narrative, the titles address the issues of responsibility, safety and security:
1. Safe I: Reflections in Solitude, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
2. Safe II: Yosemite, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
3. Missing I & II: Marmalade & Tribute to Marmalade, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card and photo paper, £105.
4. Safe III: A Memento, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
5. Safe IV - Caution: Paper collage, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
6. Safe V - Caution: Portrait of a Lady, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
7. Safe VI: The Artist in the Last Days of 2018, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
8. Safe VII: Pear and Grapes after Henri Fantin-Latour, 2019. Acrylic and
gouache on card, £30.
9. Safe VIII: Untitled, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
10. Safe? No One is Watching, 2019. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
11. Safe and Sold - Caution: The 13th Hour after Anselm Kiefer, 2018. Acrylic and gouache on card, £30.
- Subject Matter: Conceptual
- Created: February 06, 2019
- Collections: The Black Square series