WITNESS
Taylor & Wood, 2010
10.05 x 0.52 m rolls
Printed by Graham & Brown
Available from the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
The design for the wallpaper Witness is reproduced directly from a pencil on paper drawing of a child’s eyes. The immediacy of the sketch which was drawn in a single sitting, is therefore translated in a very undiluted way. Here the use of the flexotype press at Graham & Brown was particularly apposite in translating the quality of the original line drawing.
A child’s gaze is often unsettling in it’s honesty; it appears to see into us and penetrate the mannerisms of adult behaviour. Witness, as a title, implies that our current actions or inactions are being observed by the generation that will inherit the consequences. Issues such as the colossal debt accrued due to our banking system, our environmental future and more specifically the way parents raise their own children, are evoked.
That the eyes are clearly those of a young female is an additional but important nuance, as major decisions whether economic, environmental or parental are still predominantly made by men. By translating the unique pair of eyes into an endlessly repeating pattern, we are scrutinized by a whole mass of individuals. An entire generation is thus holding us accountable.
BLANK CHEQUE
Taylor & Wood, 2010
10.05 x 0.52 m rolls
Printed by Graham & Brown
Available from the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
With the recent decision to finally consign the bank cheque, a 2000 year old form of payment transfer, into financial history, Blank Cheque is patently of its time.
It symbolizes both, the recent catastrophic ineptitude of hedge fund management and property developers the world over, and signals the end of an era where personal finance was personal and required one to one interaction between people.
The handwritten signature which identified each cheque as being unique and belonging to an individual, has now been replaced by a PIN (personal identification number). Whereas the PIN can be changed electronically and indefinitely, the signature remained consistently ‘ours’ throughout our lives.
Global electronic systems, through which stocks, shares and collateral can be bought, sold, gained or lost, within a millisecond, have no place for a bill of exchange that involves time, materiality and ironically, money.
Blank Cheque shares with Witness the concern that future generations will pay for the short sightedness and irresponsibility of the present culture.
