27 January 2010
Louise Atkinson | Julie Caves | Katherine Johnson and Stacey Allen | Steffan Jones- Hughes | Simon Lewandowski | Victoria Lucas | Andy Singleton
Collect is an exhibition that features the loved object, through constructed, found, and represented collections created using paper based materials. The artists selected are all concerned with the passionate interest we have for personal possessions, and the objects of the everyday. Why do we feel the need to archive, to save, to cut out, and to keep? What drives us to accumulate, record and assemble?
It could be said that to collect is to assert ones own existence, through the acquisition of objects that encapsulate the collector’s subjective individuality. This collection outlives the collector, allowing him or her to live on through this extension of self. It is easy therefore, to compare the collector with the artist; both focussed on creating immortality through the creation / collection of objects, whether this be a conscious effort or not.
Steffan Jones-Hughes, Fragility, 2008, Printed imagery and found bottles, 100cm x 20cm x 20cm
Steffan Jones-Hughes for example presents a collection that reflects his own mortal fragility, archiving objects as a way to preserve his own existence. The lifeless bodies of birds, collected whilst on walks in the spring, are photographed, the images positioned in specimen jars. In contrast, Katherine Johnson and Stacey Allen in the piece Eat Your Words consume words from a book, the performance acting as a metaphor for the way humans strive to collect information and knowledge.
Katherine Johnson and Stacey Allen - Eat Your Words, 2008
Photography plays a huge role in this exhibition; as moments, beloved objects, experiences and memories are documented through the use of the lens. In fact, today’s obsession with collecting lies in the act of photographing. Moments, places, and people are captured, recording the passage of time through the archive of imagery and the changing faces staring out from the paper or screen. Facebook is an extraordinary example of this; individuals document their own existence, and project it back in to the world as evidence. I exist. We existed.
The medium of paper and the Artist’s Book is an appropriate form in which to explore the notion of the collection. The book, and its ability to present vast amounts of information in such a small space, acts almost like a mini museum, documenting and personally informing the individual of its contents through the turn of a page. Paper is fragile and ephemeral, making works such as Andy Singleton’s Cut out Leaves extraordinarily ethereal.
Andy Singleton - Hand Cut Paper Leaves, 2010, Various Dimensions
Collections are extraordinary instruments that allow us to learn about the civilisations we live in, past and present. They allow us to rationalise the passage of time, putting our fears surrounding the constant loss time demands temporarily at rest. Most of all they tell us something about ourselves, allowing us to place ourselves in the real, to remember, and to make ourselves feel more alive.
Louise Atkinson - A Catalogue of Disasters, 2007, Paper, print, book board, maps, plastic, linen thread
1. Julie Caves - Have a Nice Day Postcard set, 2005
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