JAMES DODD
STREET SKETCHES
05.11.21 ~ 21.11.21
This project extends my investigations into the potential of mechanically assisted painting and creativity. Essentially, I enjoy mucking about with basic engineering as much as I enjoy painting. I grew up always having to make-do with whatever was at hand and this sense of adaptation and DIY has carried through into my practice. I am also inherently an outdoors person and look for ways to make things outside, have adventures and add to an ongoing sense of 'plein air'.
I've had a few attempts at a device that has an aerosol output and have been resolving this current version over recent months. The device can be wheeled to and from a site, carrying all of the elements required. The City of Adelaide has free wall that provides a public space for people to paint. I have been using this site as an outdoor studio to create this body of work.
The project embraces a curiosity about what happens when we try to create a machine that paints. It is not driven by a desire to imitate human outputs. Having been inspired by urban intervention, street art and graffiti for a long time, I am someone who 'reads' marks and residues on suburban surfaces. I 'read' the way aerosol is commonly applied and I wonder whether it is possible to create marks that are unexpected, unusual or uncanny. The broader proposition of the project might be something like - "is it possible to make a make mark with aerosol that does not look like it was made by a human?"
Amongst these visual languages I include buffing and the ongoing overlaying of marks that occurs. Using the Adelaide free wall as a site set off a range of responses in the process and outcomes that would likely not have occurred, had I limited my activity to a conventional studio setting. I found myself regularly reacting to marks and compositions left by other artists. Whilst working, I am contemplating compositions at the scale of the wall and the canvas becomes a place to condense and distil all of this.
This project has been supported by the City of Adelaide.
- James Dodd
