our featured artist this month is paul Vivian
An artist we both know the work of, and who has influenced both mine and Jenna’s art practice in the past and possibly how we work today. it is great to read what Paul’s work is about, where he is at now, and who influences his own practice. The above image is of Paul’s work called ‘All sea and no land’ - 2020 Printed towel
Born 1970 Middlesex Paul Vivian studied at Plymouth College of Art and Design, Chelsea College of Art and Design and Norwich School of Art and Design. He has exhibited across the UK and internationally. His most recent exhibition was a collaborative work with Laura Eldret at Gods House Tower Southampton. He lives and works between Manchester and London.
1 - Could you explain your practice? Only you know why you do what you do.
A consistent approach to the work is that an object or an image will mostly be an intersection of two habitually incompatible frames of reference such as a life ending meteor printed on a beach towel. The poet AP Herbert said, ‘highbrow is looking at a sausage and thinking of Picasso’. I am fascinated by the ability of objects or images to become a transformative cypher for ideas, memory, and pareidolia. In recent years I have also become interested in the oneiric how we dream with an object or image. There’s this quote from Samuel Beckett’s ‘Play’, ‘am I as much as being seen’ I think about this a lot. In simplistic terms, this refers to the sense that us or a thing will simply be a mechanism for thought or questioning. The artist Pierre Huyghe talks about any encounter with something being a form of deviation.
20 or so years ago I was a painter, I was dutiful in attempting to follow a specific way of working and now I don’t feel I need to adhere to a set plan. I haven’t made a new piece of work for a while, but I am not worried about that, pausing within your practice is good. In my pause, I’m learning to sail to deliberately change things up. On the water time slows, it’s a liminal space. I don’t expect to make work about sailing but I do anticipate my thinking to change. Sometimes not making work is better than acting like you are busy out of fear. It’s good to go with the external changes in life, the disappointments, failures, or joy, and allow this to inform the work as opposed to illustrating these through the work. Alain Badiou talks about rupture as a political act, being only possible if we experience a rupture within ourselves, our lives. In my own way, I hope that the work can be a form of rupture, that’s what I would hope for. I’m in no way there yet.
2 - Is art relevant today?
If we mean art as a critical space, yes art is always relevant. I always see Art as a something to disturb continuity. Think of any space, empty, now populate it with things and stuff, things and stuff usually have a purpose like a washing machine, signs, toilet, and civic public sculpture/monument but art is purposeless a hole in this continuity. A space to lose ourselves or acknowledge something in ourselves, both good and bad. But the more it's corporatized, made as entertainment or righteous it just seeps into the mulch of purpose.
Art shouldn’t really be easy to consume, it’s good to have things you ingest that turn you inside out. For one thing, you learn to not ingest that again or recognise you need to keep swallowing. All the best experiences I have had with art have been unsettling in some way, I’ve never skipped out of a good gallery show or event. In fact, in life the best moments sometimes come out of the worst times, reading art, looking at art should be a confrontation, not violent but one that enables us to reflect and change.
I’m always suspicious when art slips into decoration or ends up with kids bouncing on it or is presented as a TV show. Museums and art centres are becoming cafes and awkward art seems in short supply, I worry that in this country nostalgia has the better of us and I am as to blame as anybody else. I think the best art now deals with our moment and our moment is one of existential threat.
Work image is 'Meteor' Printed Towel 2016 4 feet x 3 feet
3 – We are always asked what other artists influence us, we want to know what art you don’t like, and which influences you?
There’s a lot of art I do not like or think about. My own art education presented art as a space for manners, comradery, and back-slapping even when the art wasn’t very good. It was difficult to see where the radical ideas would come from in all this pleasantry. In other words, you can like someone personally but hate what they do, it’s alright. I try and be selective, but I am always open to any work that crosses my path. However, I wouldn’t care if I see another Hockney postcard, Shrigley pencil case, Perry key ring, or a Gormley pair of slippers as long as I live.
Artists I think about a lot include Al Taylor, Rebecca Moss, Francis Davidson, Keith Arnatt, Fischli and Weiss, Tim Hawkinson, Annette Messager, Giovanni Bellini, Eva Hesse, Durer, Mantegna, Charles Ray, Robert Bresson, Pier Paulo Pasolini, Chris Burden, Chris Jones, Inuit art, the Chauvet Cave, Bas Jan Adar, and Dan Flavin. I ought to add recently I have been obsessing over a dance piece I saw recently with Dickson Mibi – Enowate I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s good when that occurs as opposed to having your mini canon in your back pocket.
4- If you could go back 10-20 years what would you tell your younger self?
Watch out for repetition, boredom is ok, trust your intuition (when it feels bad, its bad), avoid complacency, travel more, don’t get married, and stop smoking.
5 – If you could go forward 10-20 years what do you hope to have done or not done?
I’ll be 60 or 70 so basically to continue to be alive (no guarantee), I hope I have a few more good things in me. I hope I don’t repeat mistakes and settle into a rut. Collaborate more and If I can stop making towel prints that would be a small success.
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