"Monolithic Conceptual Constructions" 2009
Sign Vinyl 100cm x 100cm
Installed at Avenue Gallery during "Empirical" June 2009
"Monolithic Conceptual Constructions" 2009
Drawing 10cm 10cm
Reflections on Monolithic Conceptual Constructions
The use of sign vinyl for a conceptual art work seemed at first to be the perfect material. It is designed to have a fixed life span, the work cannot be removed from the gallery and re-installed elsewhere and it has an industrial look. The process of the works’ design and manufacture is clinically exact and endlessly reproducible. These are all features that remove the aesthetic of the work and allow it to be considered in terms of its idea.
However, the installation of the work in the gallery demanded a high craft skill level. No amount of precision manufacture can make this process any easier. Sign vinyl is designed to be applied to other precision manufactured surfaces, not white washed gallery walls! Each irregularity of the handmade surface challenged the precision of the physical object that was imposed on it. In turn, but reluctantly, the work enhanced and seemed to almost pay homage to these irregularities. This of course only happened through a ménage à trios between the two objects and the artist.
The reflection on the process from the initial design being drawn in Illustrator, through the machine cutting of the vinyl, to its installation in the gallery is the work. The intertwining relationships that developed in my mind between the industrial, the handmade and the personal input of installation are ultimately more important than the exhibited work.