Mat, What, How Why?

Winning Blue

What WB is a floor-based sculpture. At its core is a wooden structure, which in-turn is clad in plasterboard; angle beaded, skimmed in plaster, rendered with Artex, combed with a faux-decorative design and sprayed blue in colour. It sits within a pentagonal glazed frame that in turn sits upon its accompanying stand.

How WB is fabricated from everyday trade materials and techniques. Its Artex element, pentagonal vitrine, stand and their respective decoration occurred separately and at different times. The Artex cake was fabricated in my studio. The frame and stand were manufactured at a friend’s workshop. Its spraying was outsourced. It was assembled in my grandparent’s conservatory.

Why Its creation continued my on-going exploration into the spaces, environs and surroundings that I was exposed to during my adolescence. Artex was a prominent decorative feature of my family home in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s; the combed design especially so. I saw it sitting somewhere at the intersection of memory and monument.

McCracken Vend La Mine

What MVLM is a film and is 17 minutes in duration. It features a combination of live-action, illustrative and narrated elements. It was shot on location in the grounds of Europe’s last operating iron ore mine; ‘Florence Mine’ - that finally ceased operation in 2008.

How The film used a 1992 episode of the Simpsons as its structure. This was re-written and performed by a constituency of writers and actors forged from pre-existing amateur dramatic groups. It was shot on Sony HD cameras. The illustrations were outsourced. The commissioner of the film performed its score. Its narration was written by myself and performed by the father of the editor. It was edited on AVID.

Why The film was made whilst on residency in the small ex-mining town of Egremont in the West of Cumbria. The town of Egremont is the closest satellite worker town to Sellafield Nuclear facility. I wanted to use its comparison to ‘Springfield’ (out of the Simpsons…) as a way of exploring the impact a sole industry can have on its common populous.

Learning to Fly

What LTF is a performance video. It features a man running towards and jumping off a ramp in the middle of a furrowed field, in the middle of winter. The ramp is made from an old door and some breezeblocks. The man repeats this action until it hurts too much to continue. The scene then changes to the same field in the spring. He attempts to repeat the same action. He fails.

How The video was shot on a mini-DV camera. I was behind the camera and my collaborative partner at the time, Ross, was the performing in front of camera. It was made whilst we were at art school studying for our BA in Arts and Media. It was shot in a field behind our University campus.

Why It was our first performance video. It earmarked our on-going interest in the concept of failure. We wanted to make a piece of work that looked to someway of reverting back to an identifiable childhood ambition, whilst acknowledging failure at every turn. Flying became that ambition.