The artists work covers a wide range of enquiry: economic systems which govern our lives, artistic autonomy, extending the ongoing theories / variations which continually shift with economic forces within art institutions and private galleries. Economic controls which manipulate artistic production, value, validation and public perception of art / artists are referenced within the artists work and theoretical studies. The artist aims to maintain full economic control over his work.
The use of different names is used by the artist as well, creating racial diversity, allowing investigation of various issues in relation to the pseudonyms employed.
My intention is to look at just one aspect of the artists work. The artist casts a critical eye on the paradigm of economic / social infrastructure of the Western World. Deconstructing our systems, their signifiers and signifieds in order to conceptualise the effects such systems have on our lives. Showing connections between third world debt to individual debt and how these systems control our lives.
By use of conceptual and associative engineering, the artist engages the viewer with alternative forms of visual language / thinking. A critique which delivers a thought provoking insight into aspects of the economic strata. Removal of initial subject from its context into the world of art, allows the artist to isolate and point to a subtext, promoting a different way of perceiving the synthetic political / economic strategies imposed upon us.
The tower of Lego bricks with a single house brick placed on top, points to a system which negates a beneficial set of conditions to developed countries and through the interlocking Lego bricks proves how much we are locked into a way of thinking / conditioning. Becoming a prisoner in our own system.
The artist also points to crime on individual and corporate levels. The small tin of beans next to a receipt with no record of the transaction re-enforces the pettiness of an act (in some cases seen as an act of survival ) when seen in proportion to the acquisition of billions through corporate crime shown in another piece.
The artist questions the whole system, how we become economic units of production. Surplus Workers references emigration / capital export, the masses as units to be exploited. Through out the work, the artist creates a resonance which tunes into issues continually surfacing in our political, economic and social systems.
A. Pendleton. Artist / Former Lecturer in Art & Design.
