Artist David Rodford will synthesise his experience of a lifetime working in industrial design and manufacture in his exhibition Detrius – the Debris of Consumerism – opening at Quay Arts this Saturday (21st January).
Detritus represents the culmination of David’s study with the Open College of Arts. This exhibition is his degree show.
David takes consumer packaging as his source material and, using a process of casting, has created 3-dimensional Plaster of Paris forms, making the hand-made from the machine-made.
The cast arrangements on display at Quay Arts articulate a personal view of the world, a relationship with materials, making and sustainability.
David says:
“By taking the banal and ephemeral materials and by process transforming and memorialising them, I am prompting the viewer to both re-examine and re-evaluate their relationship with the source material.
“I bring to my practice the experience of a working life spent in industrial design and manufacture, which informs my relationship with materials and processes. In this body of work, I am bringing this knowledge and synthesising it with my artistic drives. In particular the manipulation of materials, the placement of forms, compositions and the relationship between 2D and 3D.
“This group of work titled ‘Detritus’ is about disposability, design and making; taking the ephemeral, banal throw-away objects and by the process making the handmade from the machine-made, the impermanent permanent.
Article continues below this advertisement “I regard the source material, supermarket packaging, as considered pieces of design, whose qualities, through my process are elevated. I see the cast forms as three-dimensional photographs that memorialise disposable manufactured objects and index their condition and the works as a combination of associated elements plus my own perspective.
“The resulting compositions are a recollection of working life; they are autobiographical, meditation and celebration of making. The visual language that emerges from these works derives from my intimate understanding of the components and processes that are behind their manufacture rather than an ideology that relates to minimalism.”
Detritus will be displayed at Quay Arts from Saturday 21st January to Sunday 12th February, from 09:00 to 17:00. Entrance is free of charge.
There is also a Meet the Artist session on Saturday 28th January at 15:00. This will be a chance to meet the artist in the gallery for an informal tour of the exhibition, ask questions, and find out more about the work and processes employed in their making. This session is also free of charge.
