Archivum: I-XXVIII

Archivum I-XXVIII (detail)...graphite, polaroid, text and bees wax.

 The notion of an archive often affords the opportunity to engage in the unfolding of an historical  narrative that attempts to construct a specific truth. The play between the methods of gathering descriptions of the past, our personal experience of  the present and how one interprets the varying states of transition between the two is something that continues to interest me. 

This is part of the reason I find visiting a museum environment more visually stimulating than art galleries. It's as if the methods of display and the placement of a diverse range of disparate objects within a blend of textual descriptions opens up a more visually stimulating experience of  free association. The museum environment as a space that re-presents 'history'  often gives one permission to merge the experience of the past and present into a collection of objects and surfaces that dissolve the notion of  any fixed narrative. 

Although there is a very deliberate sense that we are being presented with a singular historical narrative, inevitably the juxtaposition of different objects and information triggers associations that were never intended. It is this heightened sense of things that I find too often remains illusive within the gallery experience. Perhaps it is part of the reason why I believe that 'conceptual overlay' instead of 'conceptual underpinning' is destroying the experience of so much contemporary art. 

This series of collage pieces explores the notion of the archive as a collection where elements of drawing, the photograph and text are deliberately placed in a state of flux.

Archivum: (detail)

Archivum:(detail)