JAY CLARKE COMES OUT SWINGING
A Window to Reality #004 featured Jay Clarke and was a brief but explosive performance. Jay spent over fifty hours modelling his sculpture before he arrived and when the performance took place, we ran for cover. After we’d recovered, we sat down with Jay to discuss the project…
THE INTERVIEW
This interview was conducted with Graffio Arts at our studio in Jan 2020.
“ It’s been quite phenomenal hasn’t it? It’s been quite theatrical. Can’t wait to see the final production”
You've just completed AWTR #004 with us, an epic performance today. How's it been so far?
So far? It's been quite phenomenal hasn't it? It's been quite theatrical. Can't wait to see the final production.
Can we get a bit more depth into your practice?
It's figurative, it's mostly 3d. It has a lot of influence coming from traditional practice processes. The other aspect to it is it's quite kind of visceral, glutinous kind of work, using a lot of low tech materials - like expanding foam or the poly resin. Each one has an abjection to it - it might be glutinous or heavily textured - almost like something that would evoke a fleshy emotion to it. They all seem to be within the area of gentle decay - they might appear to melt like a wax work, or the plaster works tend to have a flax effect - caused from this process of mixing acid into the plaster before it sets - which creates a reaction throughout the body of the plaster while it's being casted - that's very unique.
How much do you think your practice has evolved over the last few years?
About four years ago - I wouldn't say I had one. Going over to Bulgaria and studying there for a year really opened my eyes up to the horizons that you can get from being an artist. coming back - its been constant development, development - making something new, making something different - pushing it towards it getting bigger and better than the last one. It leads to some interesting places - exhibition wise, as well as getting to some far out places.
How much of your current work involves destroying your art?
I guess it comes into all manners of the work. Something's always going to get destroyed in the making of it. You could go down the route of saying - even the moulds are getting destroyed. But I've got a strong thread of work now where it is literally just making a hollow sculpture, filling it full of paint & then finding as many creative ways of letting that paint back out as possible. The plaster has its destructive processes - using acid to deteriorate it. So I'd say it comes into - in the context of the work.
So Window to Reality - part of the premiss is that we are destroying all the artwork anyway - how do you feel that your work fits into the bigger picture of the project - your art will have another life within AR?
I think it's great. It's quite easy to let go of this sculpture already, knowing that it wasn't going to be made to last. I've already done half the work in destroying it. But it was never really about the sculpture, it was always about the painting, the process leading up to how that paint got on the canvas was just one of much, elaborate ludicrous work ready. The sculpture was really the tool. The axe was the paint brush. But to destroy everything in the end, It's great! I don't see anything wrong with it.
Do you ever get attached to any of your pieces of work?
I don't think I could actually take a hammer to any of my other works without it being subsidised one way or another. But if I know a piece is going to be destroyed then yeah - let's destroy it! But anything else - possibly not.
We gave you a short four hour window for your performance - any incite into how you approached this?
That four hour window came with about 50 hours of hard labour before hand. You'd never have got a sculpture off that fast, no matter how big your team was. I think 4 hours - it was just taking a mould of the person who was a cast of - then yeah, everything was done off side. The plinth was taken down & made to be screwed together in a matter of minutes - and everything was booked, packed & ready to go. It was just a case of bringing it in for the final - finishing touch.
So I understand for this performance you've approached it differently and done a time lapse of it being made, which is going to become a piece of the AR.
Yeah that's right. It should give the audience a bit more of an incite into how it was made, and the length of time that everything took in the end, from taking a mould off a living human, to having a foam impression, to casting that again in plaster - not in one single piece either -this was cast in several stages. This was because the nature of the project needed a heavy base but a hollow inside for all the paint to go in. So, it was one of my more complex pieces that I've done.
The piece the audience are going to be confronted with is going to be the paint spilt canvas, so to suddenly see a time-lapse of someone getting moulded and cast is almost irrelevant until you watch it though and find out that everything that's been done has led up to this final... I'd say it was an installation in the end. Quite an immersive artwork that ended up covering the walls and everything. But I felt like that was what this project was about, it wasn't so much about the sculpture, it was more about getting that paint onto the wall. The sculpture just happened to be a strong visual aid in doing so as well as having it's own kind of meaning & orientation, and everything that comes with it in my art practice in general.
Is there an element of detachment that you needed to practice here?
Not for this one - I've got all the photos. If you'd have turned around to me & said - now delete all the photos and delete all the videos of it actually happening - I might have been strained at that point ! But for me, knowing that the sculpture would be getting destroyed the canvas would be getting destroyed - for me the artwork, through and through was the video. The video is the artwork to me and I can quite happily let go of everything else.
Do you think this will happen in the future - that the digital version could become more important that the real thing?
I think it would be a hard one to argue at this stage. We're still at a point where we hold onto physical objects. The way the digital arts is moving - the way it bridges with an "analogue artwork" - the blending of the two I think will drive digital work further in that respect. Digital is still quite new. Having physical work with an embodiment of digital - like an overlay - or part of the process - something that can be combined with something more tangible - as a way of opening more doors for people. I fee like we're going to be conditioned to have augmentation and VR - at some stage..... Like Google glass was a good attempt at bringing the AR into the mainstream. Give it enough time and you might find that you're going down the High Street and everything in the shop shows you everything about it. If not though Google glass then through your smart phone, until such a day when we have a better source of tech.
It feels like it's coming doesn't it. Can you foresee any interesting use cases of Augmented reality?
Things like digital artworks - that don't exist in a space, but you can walk around a room -using 3D mapping. You can see the artwork in your own time - with your own device. Something quite explosive - where you had to either be there in the moment to see it. With a device you could do back and rewind it - eg something that had - exploded.
We were talking earlier about an exhibition (Trash Art) where the artwork was destroyed. It could then be rewound and watched again in AR...
Yeah - you've got the option of playing it in reverse. So you could freeze time - see bits of artwork flying through the air. Or show something really abstract and colourful -there's a lot of theory you could go into there - suggesting things about colour floating in the air. It's not necessarily a painting, it's not a sculpture, but it's still there and something to be considered.
Any commentary on the empty shops, the current status of the high street - it feels like a shift is happening. Commerce changing, commodity goods are moving online and the offline world is having to radically re-think what it is. Do you think the arts could fit in in any way to help support the high street?
Yeah - First off - independent shop owner that have empty spaces can save money by letting artists in - using it as a creative space on short term contracts. If they collectively allowed more creative outlets to use their spaces it would draw more people back to the high street. I think that times where theres austerity - people look for more creative ways of showing off or creating artwork - disused shops could be a bridge in that gap - to either show off their art & it not having to be so low end. In a time where there's a lot of struggle in the world.
Would you say that there is any scope to get down to peoples level and present artwork and present it to people that wouldn't normally set foot in a gallery?
When people go to town - they normally have a handful of shops that you normally go to. But the rest of town, you just discard - you might not even have to go into them, but why not give them something interesting to look at as they walk past? Instead of another Poundshop or charity shop - it could be a painting or a sculpture or something to interact with. AR is one of those things - you can click a button on your phone and it can take you from a QR code to something. If you had a few of those dotted around town -eventually people will stop and look and see what's in that window. That then keeps people in town for longer, keeps people talking for longer. The more artworks we get into empty shops - you could create a hyper gallery in itself. You've got a row of empty shops - stick a piece of art in every-single one. Give's people something to look at. Doesn't have to be the most complex thing in the world or the most difficult to understand - but that exposure to artwork -gets people thinking a different way about things. It could be therapeutic. Could be good for your wellbeing.
Do you think art can be therapeutic?
Yeah definitely. It doesn't have to be some pretty picture that you're looking at - and you don't have to stair at some 18th Century oil painting for 2 hours to say - "Yeah - I get it." But to look at something a little outside of the box and try and take your own from it when you leave... You might have though about things in a different way. Or you might come with a statement and it might be different to what you were thinking - but people's minds tend to get a bit numb these days with the general routine. You get a bit bogged down. You get some people that won't ever set foot into an art gallery - but it doesn't have to be complex or confusing. It doesn't have to be something where you walk away and say "I don't get it" sometimes it's good to say "I don't get it" But if you do that every once in a while, chances are it's going to be good for your wellbeing, or lift your mood.
“Everything I end up doing ends up being really toxic or dangerous to human life in one way or another.”