One drawback of exhibitions at prize shows is that the art work shown is a very narrow selection. There must be good reasons why, mainly money, space and time I’d suspect. Less obviously the person nominating the artist – one of those rarified and elusive creatures commonly known as The Curator – knows a heck of a lot more about the artist than your normal gallery punter, and you never know if they have chosen work they think is a fair representation, a pick of the best of, a sample of the latest stuff, or an entirely occult selection based on that mornings tea leaves. When I saw the two pieces of work by Leo Fitzmaurice shortlisted for The Northern Art Prize I didn’t really get how they related to each other or reflected a shared approach to reality – I probably wouldn’t have even guessed they were by the same person if I’d not read the blurb first. So it was good to have the opportunity to hear Leo in conversation in the first of this years NAP artists talks last Tuesday evening at Leeds Art Gallery. I’m not sure I’m any the wiser about the second piece of work on show (see my previous post) but I have a much clearer idea of the context and the intention behind the work as a whole.
What came across strongly from Leo’s talk was the sheer sense of fun that pervades his work and his keen eye for design. He began rather disarmingly by telling us that he’d started as a painter but realised that the work he was able to produce wasn’t half as original, exciting or challenging as the stuff he chanced upon in the street, in the shops, or even In his own kitchen. He showed some slides of work he’d done with material that would best be described in any other context as litter. He takes objects that have no perceptible value and transforms them into something beautiful, surprising or simply just amusing.
A bunch of Tescos leaflets, carefully arranged, becomes a shimmering pool that teases you with it’s indeterminate dimensionality; the paper is so thin and laid so flat that it seems to be both two dimensional and three, but then again not quite either, hovering somewhere between fixed worlds. A collection of discarded packaging with the branding removed is arranged to look like a model for a futuristic city – the sort of place designed by someone who had no grasp of how human brings liked to live. Leo mentioned that he’d discovered that packaging is so standardised that we can recognise cornflakes, toothpaste, lasagna etc. even if we strip away all signature graphical detail, simply by shape. I can honestly say I’d never realised that before.
I think my favourite piece was the collection of Coke cans. Leo said he’d noticed the first one on some waste ground in Bootle, Liverpool, slightly discoloured owing to weathering but otherwise perfect. He then found the other six or seven, progressively more bleached out and denuded of anything but a spectral remnant of branding, in a short time in the same area. The Coke cans reminded me of a kind of still life, with deteriorating packaging rather than rotting fruit. Leo said he’d not manipulated or treated the cans in any way, that’s just the way he found them.
Judging from the talk that does seem to be the essence of what Leo does; either taking available marketing material or consumer objects and playing with them, removing identifiable labels, manipulating the form, constructing something unexpected and delightful; or noticing some odd connection which hasn’t been previously pointed out and arranging a piece around that idea. The shortlisted pieces, especially Horizon, tend to be the latter sort. Personally I would have loved to see more of the former, perhaps because they gave me more pleasure and less of a brain ache (yes, I am really that shallow!) but either way I was thankful to both Leo and the Northern Art Prize for such an interesting introduction to the work.
The next talk is tonight and it’s Richard Rigg in conversation with Emily Marsden
http://www.northernartprize.org.uk/ourblog/dates-of-the-northern-art-prize-exhibition
Well worth getting along to.