fixed to each other. They appear to float on a colourful yet cloudy background.
The largest cluster of shapes at the centre left of the composition is
non-specific, falling somewhere between the regular, right-angled shapes of
something processed like metal, or packaging, or food. But also with the
intertwined, mangled feeling of something like bark, or roots, Perhaps they are
most representative of brush-marks themselves, like a Roy Liechtenstein version
of a mid 50’s Philip Guston abstract. They form a structure of echoing,
inverting and layering shapes creating the sense of something forming or
decomposing out of building blocks.
The two (collections of) shapes/ objects to the right
seem more solid and resolved in there structure, as if they may have a function,
and a conscious designer. But they appear as if made from the same grey brown
substance as the other particles. The blobs in the bottom of the composition
are the most illusively ambiguous. They could be pebbles, dirt, or fusing bacteria.
In Dust We Trust draws on the surrealist amorphous forms
of artist Yves Tanguy, whilst contrasting them with the bold dark outlining of
objects as in Philip Gustons’ late work(1967/68 onwards) or Lichtenstein’s’
work especially his pop renderings of abstract expressionism and cubist still
life (from 1965 through to the 70’s and 80’s.) The overall effect is both solid
and ephemeral, something heavy yet drifting.
The 2011 piece is strongly related to a 2003/2004 piece
No: 1 which similarly attempts to combine the ocean and sky like background and amorphous blobs of an
Yves Tanguy, with the self aware pop art of a Jasper Johns’ numerical digit. The
non-specific state of object/image creates an overall effect of an airless
digital, virtual space- which is typical of computer generated imagery, where
nothing is ever solid, liquid or gas, because it is always pixels. No: 1 follows on from a
2003 piece Untitled (surreal ensemble) which also references both pop art and surreal symbolism.
As with Box Part 1, In Dust We Trust, like previous work, strongly relates to the self awareness of
painting and the fact of 2 dimensions, but it also has a new set of meanings
related to the archetypes of the natural and the man made, and the blurring of
those boundaries. This sees the marks on canvass being pictorially
representative of the biological as well as the inheritors of an art
history. The work, however vaguely, attempts both representation and abstraction.
Title:
In Dust We Trust is the title of a track from electronic,
dance producers The Chemical Brothers, from there *album Exit Planet Dust (1995). The title
as sourced suggests the dust which may be pictured (as we have no sense of
scale,) and as the pieces are blown from left to right once again towards a gray blank field, it also suggests the
uncertainty of there destination or there place (perhaps hostile or otherwise)
in an ecosystem. We are powerless over the microscopic so we have no other
option than trust or faith.
* An album used to be a thing (a packaged disc) produced
by a band or other music performer(s), which contained a collection of there
songs or compositions structured in a way so as to consciously produce a flowing
ambience or narrative and thus a context in which to digest the work. Providing
greater enjoyment and understanding of the themes there with-in.