“One generation’s virtue is another generation’s vice.”
The title Inherent Vice is a term I adopted from the profession of art conservation. It refers to a process that occurs when artists apply various media or techniques to their art work which will eventually result in its deterioration: it is the artist who, "intentionally or otherwise, through their choice of materials or their technique determines the transitory nature of their own work."
This title fit well in the context of my own practice, as is evident in the combination of chisels and paint gouged into the surfaces of my work, the materials used as substrate or added to the surface - this surface destruction in the act of creation became a catalyst for the imagery of InHerent Vice. I have selected these common shapes and structures because of their immediate, constant, and invisible influences upon us, but also how they change and influence or daily lives.
The use of analogy has a long and elaborate history, especially during the renaissance and baroque periods when painters sought out symbology and developed a silent language that, by utilising familiar objects which, through time developed layered meanings and referenced ancient subtexts, that would, when arranged contextually and presented in a painting, immediately strike a cord of understanding with the viewer.
Similarly, I have incorporated modern day common icons, such as the water tower or a wind generator, combining design, composition and titles to produce a modern analogy. These new symbols pose questions in regards to society’s vices and virtues, and the answers speak silently about our relation to utilitarian objects in the 21st century. What it reveals of our modern culture and where we place “value” on what we build, where we build it and why, is interesting in its discourse and the potential for other new analogies in the modern age.
