Operating under the title, ‘Not Yet There' my practice is characterized by a state of restlessness or wandering that serves as both subject & motivation for my enquiries. Writing & text-based work are used to explore models of practice – & subjectivity – which resist or refuse the pressure of a single or stable position by remaining wilfully unresolved. My work interrogates the critical (& often resistant) potential within experiences or conditions such as failure, irresolution, boredom, deferral, hesitation, incomprehensibility, inconsistency & stillness. Whilst my practice tends towards the essayistic (embracing the potential of the essay as a ‘tentative effort’ or ‘trial’), I am increasingly interested in performative, invitational, propositional & even collaborative models for producing texts. Processes of condensation, extraction, fragmentation, listing, footnoting, cross-referencing & appropriation have become critical methods for attempting to produce speculative 'openings' rather than drawing conclusions, or for appearing purposeful whilst remaining without clear or discernible intent. I am a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University & live in Sheffield.

Saturday, 5 November 2011

Event: Process & Repetition - Hanne Darboven and Raphael Hefti


Sunrise/Sunset (installation view), 1984
385 sheets of paper, felt pen, postcards. 
Courtesy Camden Arts Centre and Konrad Fischer Galerie.


I have been invited to introduce the forthcoming exhibitions by Hanne Darboven and Raphael Hefti at Camden Arts Centre, 20 January 2012 - 18 March 2012. Involving a dialogue with Raphael Hefti, the introduction will explore connections and points of resonance between the two artists’ work (as well as drawing on some of the ideas underpinning my own research including texts such as Over and Over Again and Again). This will be the first solo exhibition by Darboven in the UK and will feature a number of her large scale serial works which focus on the passage and structuring of time. These vast installations are formed of hand drawn notations and numbers, musical scores and texts which are sometimes accompanied by images and objects. It will also be Hefti’s first solo show in the UK and in this new work he will approach his investigations from a specific tangent: discovering mistakes in industrial processes and pushing them to a limit where aesthetic transformations take place.