Completed Mixed Media Piece: 'Fridge 7'

All Images: 'Fridge 7', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Screen-Print, Adhesive Tape,
Spray Enamel, French Polish & Plastic Letters on Salvaged Refrigerator Door,
 55 cm X 136 cm, 2018  

This post brings me up to date with documenting all my recently completed work.  It deals with ‘Fridge 7’ – the one that nearly got away, as my attention shifted to the ‘Sentinel’ and ‘Childish Things’ series of sculptures, over the Summer.  It had sat untouched for quite a while.  Luckily, it was far enough advanced for its completion to be a relative formality, once I did return to it.

‘7’ is actually the largest of the ‘Fridges’ to date, although it essentially follows the same general format as the others, in combining relatively abstract imagery, built from paper and tape collage, photo-derived screen-printed motifs, and fridge magnet letters [1.] – and applying them to a salvaged refrigerator door.

Anyone following the evolution of my ‘This Sc(e)ptic Isle’ project, over recent months, will remember that the abandoned fridges populating my neighbourhood (and possibly yours too?), are a recurrent motif in the work – as well as providing a plentiful supply of ready-made painting substrates.  I didn’t even need a screwdriver to collect this door, as it had been considerately detached and left propped against a wall – just as though someone knew I’d be coming along.  The refrigeration theme is also echoed in the lower portion of printed imagery – it representing a radiator grille from the reverse of a completely different appliance.  I’ve been very attracted by the abstract geometry of those grilles, as I’ve documented the fridges on my regular photographic patrols – and can’t help wondering if there's even be a potential side-project in there.

Above the grille, is another section of photo-derived print, representing yet another of the project’s key motifs (and indeed, another frequently-observed category of street trash) - the abandoned trundle toy.  Several prime examples of those have been dragged home and repurposed in the form of the ‘Childish Things’ sculptures – but they’re actually just a small selection of the ones I’ve photographed to date.

Although it’s hard to divine at this stage, the abstracted ‘background’ of this piece even incorporates a third category of ‘TSI’ motif, in the form of a dismembered Union Flag.  It’s largely subsumed into the rest of the overlying imagery by now, but can perhaps still be guessed at from some of the vestigial geometry (the still-prominent triangle on the right hand side, in particular).

And that, along with a fairly blunt clue in the overriding text, are a reminder that all this work has carried a simmering undercurrent of politics throughout - as well as being a report on the way we live, revealed in the discarded refuse I move amongst each day.  It feels like a long time now since I collected and re-ordered all the found on-line comments that comprise my ‘Below The Line / Beneath Contempt’ text - but they seem to have lost little of their currency, as I’ve plundered it for choice phrases to apply to the ‘Fridges’ and ‘Sentinels’, ever since.  The original sources were as much an indicator of the futile divisiveness on both sides of what has come to be universally termed ‘The Brexit Debate’ - as any useful guide to the validity of one viewpoint over the other.  I pretty much know where I stand on the matter – as, I’m sure, might you.  But what is terrifyingly obvious, is that - after all these months, Britain is no closer to achieving anything remotely resembling resolution (or even just a degree of political maturity) on the matter.  If anything, the levels of delusion appear only magnified, as each side becomes ever more entrenched.  In effect, this country seems intent on acting-out one of the most embarassing, extended, quasi-suicide bids in recent history.

If it’s cries for attention we’re really talking about, the self-serving buffoon, who deployed the ‘have cake – eat cake’ metaphor that feeds ‘Fridge 7’, is certainly one of our leading ‘experts’ [2.].  He could even become our own Idiot-in-Chief, should such overweening personal ambition ultimately hold sway.  That thought chills me to the marrow, but it seems we really shouldn’t underestimate the gullibility of the British people these days.  And of course, the dissembling nature of such a character – playing the blimpish comedy role to mask far more sinister intentions, is pretty typical of the caliber of leadership we now endure.  Now we’re so far through the looking glass, he might actually be the figurehead most suited to the tin-pot, failed state, that Britain appears to be intent on becoming.

However this may all one day shake out – it was never really my intention to become simplistically polemical in my work – even as some kind of response felt called for.  Dogmatic ranting, and even personal abuse (see above) may provide a temporary (and even enjoyable) release - as ‘the ‘BTL / BC’ trolls demonstrated, but they’re unlikely to achieve much in the long run.  And so, I find myself attempting to repurpose them, somewhat despairingly - in search of more oblique or allusive responses to the baffling absurdity of both domestic and global affairs.  Ultimately, it feels like bleak humour may be the only properly resilient way to maintain a degree of sanity, just now.

Forthcoming Exhibition:

That’s it for finished work, then.  By the time you see this, Shaun Morris, Andrew Smith and I will be installing our latest joint exhibition, ‘Visions Of A Free-Floating Island’ at Nottingham’s Surface Gallery.  The work goes up on Wednesday, 12 September, ready for our Opening Event on the evening of Friday, 14 September.  Obviously, you’re more than welcome to join us, should you find yourself in the vicinity.  The exhibition will be up for two weeks - until Saturday, 29 September, and we’ll be giving an Artist Talk on the afternoon of Saturday 22 September (once again, the more - the merrier).  Space allowing, I plan to include as many as possible, of the ‘Flagging’, ‘Fridge’, Childish Things’ and ‘Sentinel’ pieces, shown here over the last few months.

[1.]:  Appropriately enough, the larger "CAKE" letters are actually made of some sponge-like material (aimed at the very young).

[2.]:  One might also be tempted - I suppose, to draw a connection with the current favourite T.V. anaesthetic of the disengaged classes, 'The Great British Bake-Off'.  "Let them eat cake", indeed.