Artnotapart 2018

Artwork from my series talking to  the ‘Tax Man About Poetry - Data Portraits 2017’ are being exhibited at Artnotpart 2018.

• 8  Data Art Portrait Sculptures installed in ‘Makeshift’,  Nishi Building

• The image ‘Competency Mapping Meeting- Data Portraits’ has been used in the festival marketing campaign.

• A new site specific installation for the festival stage. ‘Artists’ Data Portraits - Unsustainable Realties' 2018

The work addresses the 2018 festival theme of ‘Climax’ by using data to generate artworks about the realities of being a practicing artist. For artists it is increasingly difficult to survive and make meaningful work - it has come to a ‘climax’ with the realities of the hardships of  art making and art consumption creating a potential loss of cultural activity and discourse in our society. The ongoing assumption in our culture that artists should work for free , ‘because they love it’ or because they will ‘gain exposure from it’ contributes to this struggle and prevents  sustained investment in the arts by both makers and consumers.

This  body of work, in particular the eight sculptures visualize the dramatically different  financial and employment conditions artists work within.  Using a survey, two different types of data were collected from the eight artists: demographic data about each artist’s income, employment, family statistics etc., and personality data, including about each artist’s preferences for favourite colours, activities and dreams.   The sculptural works contrast material and form to highlight the financial realities of being an artist - what interests the ‘The Tax Man’ (bureaucracy etc.) is represented with concrete blocks; while the uniqueness and quirkiness of each participant artist -  ‘The Poetry’ (creativity etc.) is represented with coloured perspex and discs.

The graphic image ‘Competency Assessment Audit Meeting’ is a  two dimensional representation  of the 'data portrait maps’,  a meetings of the artist/educators, ‘climaxing’ to a crescendo of stress and potential destruction caused by the bureaucratic and financial realities of maintaining a sustainable art practice and fighting for the integrity of arts education in an economic rationalist environment.

The site specific installation on the festival stage ‘Artists’ Data Portraits - Unsustainable Realties' is a  visualization of the portrait subjects - ‘the artists’ disintegrating as issues of sustainability; creative, financial, personal, cultural and political;  come to a climax at the peak of the festival stage.

Click here for more information on ‘Tax Man About Poetry - Data Portraits 2017’

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Artnotapart 2013