Make it last
- Artist:
- Type: Print
- Medium: Screenprint on Somerset satin 300gm paper
- Production Date: 2018
- Copy Number: 1/2
- Description: In the artist's own words:
In the context of my practice::
Photographic images of my own hands have featured in my work since about 2009 when I made an edition for an exhibition at Washington Garcia Gallery in Glasgow using my hand and two large wooden beads to make a ‘face‘. The inclusion of my hands is a form of self-portraiture and as with much of the photography in my work I think of it as a record of time passing, a body ageing. Often my hands are signalling ‘doing‘ or ‘demonstrating‘ as with the piece Calculated Risk (2018) [Collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art] where a toothpick is held between my forefinger and baby finger, or This, looped (2018) [Commissioned by V&A Dundee] where an enormous hand holds up an object for public inspection. Yet if these hands are ‘doing‘, it‘s unclear to what end, and if they are ‘demonstrating‘, the demonstration has more to do with processes of becoming, than completion.
The works Eros and Psyche and Make It Last come from thinking about the experience of touch involved in the making of my artworks and specifically the varied forms of touch involved in moving back and forth between the press bed and the computer keyboard. While I prefer the experience of the manual and value it as an important form of intelligence, I am reliant on the capabilities of the digital and my prints often reflect the connections between the two. The material intrigue in many of my works relies on complicating perceived differences between digital and analogue approaches.
These two prints are made from scans of my hands that I recorded in the midst of making other works. My working process is largely improvised and rather than planning out an entire composition in layers before starting, I use layering as a way to think things through. I often jump back and forth between the computer, my phone and the press as I work. Ink covered fingers tap the computer keyboard, click the trackpad, swipe, pinch and expand images. Evidence of touch is everywhere but how it operates feels quite different. I find it unnerving when the new screen-based gestures that have been assimilated in recent years find their way into my relationship to physical objects - double tapping an image in a book or ‘expanding‘ a photograph in the newspaper to enlarge it for example. Although these two works don‘t point directly to these thoughts, the manual and the digital are brought together through the very act of scanning, a 1:1 form of digital recording.
What is perhaps foregrounded more in these works is inky fingers adorned with other signifiers - several rings and an elastic hairband around the wrist. The works‘ titles refer more to the sensuous aspect of touch and allude to experiences with and connections to other people. The ring on my left hand depicts Eros and Psyche and is a replica of a Greek 2nd-3rd century ring and seal. And although the rings on my right hand have no such imagery, the work‘s title, Make It Last, is suggestive of a desire to hold onto something.
These thoughts were an undercurrent in my exhibition Dog Comes In, Cat Goes Out where the hands were exhibited as though they were pushing out the sides of the gallery, possibly supporting the walls, or possibly making space for the other artworks. Both certainly present as an important feature of the entire exhibition‘s production. - Dimensions: Unf 112cm h x 76cm w Framed 120cm H x 84cm W
- Acquisition Note: Purchase fully funded by the joint support of Art Fund and the National Fund for Acquisitions
- Digital Copy:A digital copy exists.
- Location: Iris Murdoch Building
- Accession Number: 2021.3
- Contact: University of Stirling Art Collection
