Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero - Artist Profiles
Nicholas Bailey
www.nicksbailey.com
Nicholas Bailey’s work inhabits a realm of mild
disappointment and temptation: the
apparatus that compose the work entice
through traditionally tactile objects such as
buttons, switches, handles and hammers.
These often readily recognisable and
archetypal objects provide a launch pad to
understanding notions and concepts behind
the work, using both a simple, charming
language of familiarity and the more intricate
language of whimsical desire and selfrestraint.
The work draws the audience into questioning
their conventional role; a viewer is compelled
to gauge whether it is acceptable to
physically engage with the work, whilst
coming to an understanding of what the
physical form of the artwork offers. One is
reminded that, at best, this still only amounts
to physical contact with an object or objects,
and while the ‘toucher’ may be momentarily
rewarded with some form of reaction or
consequence this is only a superficial disguise
for base positive reinforcement.
Images:
(top)
‘Chandelier’ (2008)
Chandelier, concrete, electrical wiring
70 x 120 x 720cm
Chandelier encased in concrete and wired to the ceiling.
(Bottom)
‘Try it over and over and it becomes a sure thing’ (2009)
Laser Pointer, candle, scales, steel rule, laboratory
equipment and table
46 x 34 x 172 cm
Lit candle on a set of scales with laser pointer shining on its
wick, measuring its height against a steel rule.
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Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero - Artist Profiles
Alexander Bates
www.alexanderbates.com
Alexander Bates is inspired by the human
desire to create order out of disorder. His
practice can be seen as both a reflection of
this need and also through the use of scale,
materials and context in individual pieces, a
way of undermining and rebelling against this
compulsion.
In recent investigations, Bates has simplified his
methods, combining the repetitive and
accumulative approach used in old artworks
with more direct and quicker pieces. This is an
attempt to not only enrich and vary his artistic
output but also forms a personal enquiry into
what defines something as a “work” of art and
questions whether an object’s worth is
reflective of its duration.
In addition to his studio practice, Alexander is
also co-founder, editor and contributor for
quarterly Art zine “Impulsive Random
Platform”.
Images:
(Top)
‘The life of a Pencil (HB)’ (2008)
A drawing of a pencil, made using a pencil, until the
pencil runs out.
(Bottom)
‘No Chewing in Class’ (2006)
The complacent act of sticking chewing gum to the
underside of a school desk obsessively repeated, creating
strange and alien stalactite like forms.
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Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero - Artist Profiles
Jim Bond
www.jimbond.co.uk
Jim Bond uses the human condition as a
springboard for his kinetic works. Often
reductive and subtly humorous these works
highlight the circular nature of the everyday.
Often the cold mechanical aesthetic of these
works is at odds with the very human content
evoked.
Images:
(Top)
‘Dust’ (2008)
Steel, motors, programme logic controller, electro
magnet, ferrite powder, brush
Kinetic work in which a never ending dance is played out
between an electro-magnet that attracts iron filings that
are quietly moved forward and then dropped before its
partner, a brush opposite. The brush, then, rather
pointedly, sweeps the filings back over to the side of the
table the magnet resides on.
(Bottom)
‘Cyclic’ (2009)
Steel, electronics, motors
Installation originally created for Kinetica. ‘Cyclic’ is made
up of three elements; a rotating steel disc, a tilting curved
steel track with rolling cylinder and a row of ariel motors,
which chain reaction, with no beginning and no end.
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Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero - Artist Profiles
RODNEY DEE
www.rodneydee.com
Through his work Rodney Dee explores notions
of ritualism and the connections held
between physical action and transcendence.
Whilst working predominately in video and
basing works around the body, Dee looks to
explore one’s ability to exceed boundaries,
and move between different spaces.
In the context of Sisyphus Dee has been
particularly drawn to notions of gravity both as
an elemental force acting upon the rock and
it’s trajectory, as well as the broader readings
of this myth in which the rock denotes the sun
rising and falling in the sky in accordance with
daily solar activity.
Dee also notes an interest in the perpetual
nature of this act in relation to some higher
purpose: “For wherein most rituals offer the
allusion of transcendence; Sisyphus’ own
efforts at pushing the rock are a testament to
his absurdity – continually reinforced with
every failed attempt. As a result his
description as an ‘absurd hero’ is well
deserved, for whilst he never reaches the
apex of the hill, he is never fully released from
the cycle either and therein lays an
opportunity to try again”.
Images:
(Top)
‘Crossing over’ (2008)
Installation view
Video Projection, running time 2min 30secs (looped
playback)
(Bottom)
‘Untitled (Threshold)’ (2008)
Installation detail
Quick time file of ‘Daedalus’ (2009)
Video, running time 2min 14secs (looped playback)
Daedalus is based upon the fabled architect who
fashions wings of wax and feathers so as to fly from King
Minos’ labyrinth. In Greek mythology the story of
Daedalus underpins mans innate desire to escape from
the human condition whilst elevating himself to a celestial
vantage point.
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Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero - Artist Profiles
JooHee Hwang
www.jooheehwang.com
JooHee Hwang’s personal experience of
finding herself in unfamiliar surrounds has lead
her to questioning notions of space and
territory. What she now describes as
‘subjectivity of space’ is explored in her vast
sculptural installations.
“After leaving my warm nest what I
discovered was the subjectivity of space. It
appeared as though we are belonging in the
same frame of space and time, in fact, we
are living in completely different worlds
depending on who we are and how we
perceive the space. That is to say, the
definition of the space can be varied by one’s
own perception”.
Hwang’s interest in Sisyphus lies in the notion of
a world within a world. For Sisyphus, the
mountain became a world within itself, a new
reality.
Images:
(Top)
‘Continuous Space’ (2009)
(Bottom)
A Space within a Space’ (2008)
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Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero - Artist Profiles
Matthew James Kay
www.matthewjameskay.com
Process and repetition play a major role in the
development of Matthew James Kay’s work.
Through this largely sculptural practice and
research Kay explores themes of the
transcendent everyday - a (potentially
hapless) quest for fullness of life in the face of
the mundane.
This is manifest in works which balance
repetition and nothingness with purposeful
action and creation, and which walk a line
between brokenness and wholeness,
between dissatisfaction and hope, doubt and
faith. Kay also expresses an interest in the idea
of the making process as ritual or a meditative
engagement with experience. From this
perspective visual poems are created that
join together to map exploration of the
uncomfortable process of living, a beautiful,
frustrating, joyous, holy, painful, funny process
of transformation and becoming. These works
have most recently taken the form of
recyclable temporary sculptures and
installations in cardboard, and animated
videos.
Images:
(Top)
‘You’ve carried your ashes, now carry your fire’ (2009)
Corrugated cardboard, gaffa, pencil
(Bottom)
‘Songs without names’ (2007)
Constructed display unit, chair pieces, windmill.
Video work:
‘Human, all too Human’ (2009)
A surmountable mountain made of corrugated
cardboard and adhesive tape that spins endlessly on it's
own little island.
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Sisyphus: The Absurd Hero - Artist Profiles
RACHEL PRICE
www.rachelpricesculpture.co.uk
Adopting an experimental and material led
approach to her practice Rachel Price's work
is concerned with investigating the dialogue
between our material and our conceptual
worlds often through the pairing of image and
form. Price works on the assumption that our
physical experience of the world helps inform
our conceptual formation of it, i.e that they
should not be viewed as mutually exclusive.
Points of intersection are an ongoing concern
in Price’s practice: Between abstraction and
representation, the real and the imagined,
hope and disappointment are all explored.
Price’s particular interest in the myth lies in the
moment Sisyphus teeters on the apex of the
mountain. Momentarily relieved from the from
the physical burden of his task, Sisyphus has a
small window in which he contemplates his
fate, neither victorious or defeated Sisyphus at
this point is in limbo. This for Camus is where
the absurd lies, the moment when it stops and
we have time to muse our situation.
Price’s work for the show will be a site specific
work entitled ‘close but no cigar’ that plays on
these themes.
Images:
(Top)
‘Planning Permission’ (2010)
Mixed media installation
(Bottom)
‘Poke’ (2009)
Timber, photocopy
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