"Business art is a much better thing to be making than art art, because art art doesn't support the space it takes up, whereas business art does. (If business art doesn't support it's own space it goes out-of-business)"

Warhol, Andy The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) p.144

For the last two years my work has predominately been concerned with the use and manipulation of popular media. This takes shape in the form of digital photography and moving imagery. The ‘artvert’ materialised in response to work done with Oxfam in late 2006. The art created to promote the charity spurred my interest in advertising, yet simultaneously pushed me back into the art industry, where I would feel no pressure from the constraints of censorship.

My ‘artverts’ work with brand identities, those created within the art industry as well as the corporate world, analysing what makes them successful. Selected elements from each are then used in conjunction with each other to add to and develop my own brand identity. My work deals with issues regarding commodification, commercialisation, parody and authorship. I am interested in the language used by the advertising industry, visual as well as spoken. The entertainment value of advertising is important to me. I often find the best way to communicate my ideas is through humour, as laughter provokes a physical reaction from the viewer, extending their attention span and as a result, adds to the memorability and branding of my art.

Inspired by Duchamp’s ‘reciprocal ready-mades’ and his suggestion of using a Rembrandt painting as an ironing board, my work disregards the individual definitions of Art and Design in an attempt to make the art object have a function. At present I see all the products I have created as prototypes. I will only see them in their intended context upon their mass production. The gallery space will be my shop floor. The authentic will be the mass produced. “It is not art for arts sake, as much as art for ad's sake”. (1)

(1) Matthew P. McAllister, "The commercialization of American culture". Thousand oaks : Sage, 1996 (p.177)

PKF TOP DESIGN AWARD WRITE-UP

2008 COMPETITION WIN

USE OF CONCEPT AND PHOTOGRAPHY