Craig Fisher and Debra Swann
GLITCH
MAY 11-25th2003
Vernissage May 10th 2003 7pm
with special video evening at K4-screen: §Barbara Brugola(I) §Noël Dernesch(CH) Effie Gibson (UK) §Peter Stoffel(CH) §Solvej Dufour Anderson(DK) §Michael Grime and §Will Alexander (UK), Clare Goodwin(UK) §Benny Nemerofsky Ramsey(CA) Anina Schenker(CH) §Ursula Sulser(CH), §Vittorio Santoro(CH), §Gustavo Hansson (CH)
Craig Fisher- Aspiring to boyhood fantasies I often use iconography associated with
traditionally ‘masculine’ pursuits such as the soldier, astronaut or sports
hero. I make installations, imaginary beings or objects that are androgynous inform. The work is not specifically identifiable as any one thing, be it object or image, craft/fashion or art, furniture or sculpture, gay or straight, happy or sad. The work operates in an indefinable space, somewhere between reality and fantasy. I attempt to question the boundaries between the public and private self. I’m interested in playing with peoples assumptions about what I’m allowed to be as a man and an artist and how masculinity is defined. By suggesting an inferred narrative in the production of each installation and by using references from fashion, film and high and low art I create a space in which the viewer is able to imagine and project their own private fantasies through the exploration of the objects. By making sculpture that refers to clothing / furniture the work looks as if it should be worn or used, but this is never possible, in actual fact the sculptures are always disfunctional.The use of particular utilitarian fabrics highlights this contradiction and it is also essential in creating a juxtaposition between the exclusivity of high fashion and the generic, the everyday. Material, colour, and texture are all integral to the work as a way of blurring the boundaries between the sculptural and pictorial. I want to create something that is familiar and comforting in form as well as strange andperverse. This play off of boundaries is fascinating in its potential to reveal disquieting associations.
Debra Swann- My work might be described as a highly charged idiosyncratic reaction to life experiences. My work is informed by the physicality of being human and yet the most visible trait comes from a collision between the worlds of reality and fantasy. I hope to convey the contradictions that spring from this conflict, as well as sometimes evoking a harmonious balance between the two. I am interested in the human need to believe and how it adjusts to the cynicism which life can breed. The work portrays something that is tangible and intangible, that exists in a possible void between the real and the unreal.
Taking materials from the mudane and transforming them into fantastical objects or attire, I attempt to investigate my own imagination and explore the boundaries between the everyday and the subconscious or metaphysical worlds of fantasy.
Craig Fisher and Debra Swann can also be seen at the Forum d’art Contemporain, Sierre
May 2nd – 22nd 2003. Many thanks to ècole cantonale d’art du valais www.ecav.ch
16.5.2003,
sp
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