So all in all there's eight paintings
that I brought here and when Ralph told
me that this would be the space and we
would have this room we chose which
paintings would seem to work best in
this room. So the bigger paintings that
had more complex dynamics happening,
in terms of space. I think the
paintings that are in the Arsenale,
three of them at least really are vertical
in format, or really reference somehow
the core of a body, as well as this
fragmented core of a body in space and
so they feel like those three paintings
kind of do that in a totemic way
one after another. So you have
a very linear and the installation is very precise. I think here [Giardini] these
paintings are much more complex in terms of space and the photographic image
that's underlying them and in terms of
landscape, between aspects of landscape
and just pure abstraction and in terms of
mark-making.
Then also disembodied body parts
kind of emerging, or coming out at times
and so they interact I think with
the other work in the room in a
different way, whereas the
other paintings I think would have
become... that that dynamic that I wanted
in them would have gotten lost maybe in
here. The paintings in here, three of
them are made with a photographic image,
like a news media photograph that's
blurred in Photoshop and then painted
with an airbrush to mimic the blur
and using the colours from the photograph,
using all the information that's in the
photograph. So it becomes this blurred
based image that I then work into with
mark making, with spray paint with
airbrush, with graphic pens whatever it
is and this other kind of image
grows from that. But that's generally
the approach for these, several of these
images are based on the Charlottesville
rally to the right event that it was a
few years ago in the US and one of the
images is
the Muslim March, the reactive quick marches against
the Muslim ban in the United States and so there are different images of events,
the California fires, the recent
California fires. The images of those are
also part of the under-paintings of some of these as well. I have a couple
paintings here that I think are from the
European context and I think that's
interesting because we're here
in Europe. One is of protesters being
separated by the police and a body being
pulled and carried away which is of a
Spanish protester in Barcelona and
another image Grenfell tower burning.
I think Ralph's show to me seems all
about contradictions and living at a
time where you can't think of things in
a binary way and you never really can
but I think that feels very clear right
now when we are in a moment where
politically things are being manipulated,
or being kind of put out into the world
in these very binary points of view.
You have this happening in American
politics and European politics and just
globally these kinds of issues,
complicated realities being distilled to
these very binary, kind of reactive
things; fake news, real news and all of
that stuff. I think that to me what's
interesting is you have a lot of work
that I think the way Ralph was
even engaged with curating this, or how
he puts this work together is really
about the contradictions and being kind of
comfortable and negotiating massive
contradictions and how do you do that?
How do you then invent within that
space, so to me I'm really excited by
that type of thinking.
I've enjoyed the artists that I've been
here with and working on this.
