Assemblages

Assemblages form associations of objects, features, or other pictorial elements. The making of an assemblage draws upon the ideas behind Futurism, Vorticism, Cubism, Dada, and Kurt Schwitters’ Mertz, for example. Assemblages have influenced artists subsequently, especially in sculpture e.g. Louise Nevelson and Joseph Cornell.

In 1998, I was co-curator of Playing with Paradox: George Fullard, 1923-73, a retrospective exhibition of the British sculptor’s work at Kettles Yard, Cambridge and Weston Park Museum, Sheffield. Fullard used found debris from bomb sites to construct many of his sculptures. I produced an interactive CD-ROM to support the exhibition, along with a printed catalogue. This was formative for me - I deconstructed some of his work so that users of the interactive media could piece the sculptures together again like a virtual jigsaw.

Assemblage, deconstruction, simplification, juxtaposition, and re-presentation continue to inform my work.