Christopher Madden

dada

  • Surreal sea creature. Drawing from the imagination.

    contemporary art surreal dada bizarre sea creature

    A surreal sea creature drawn from the imagination.

    Digital image. 6th May 2023

    A bizarre sea creature created digitally in Procreate on an iPad. The shape of the sea creature is based on the number six, as the image was created as part of an exercise in which I sketched several images on my iPad based on the numbers between zero and nine. The concept behind the exercise was that by having to take into account the restraints of including a number in each image I would be forced to work with forms or shapes that I might not think up straight from my imagination.

    When creating the sketch I was attempting to produce a bizarre, weird and sinister image. The result looks as though it owes a debt to surrealism, dada and the symbolists.

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  • Dada and humour: Duchamp Fountain with added spider

    contemporary dada – Duchamp Fountain with spider

    Contemporary Dada: Duchamp Fountain with Spider

    Digital image. April 2023.

    A digital image based on Marcel Duchamp’s Dada artwork, Fountain. Fountain is a ready-made in the form of a pissoir. The version of Fountain in the image is in Tate Modern in London (Duchamp created several versions of the work using different pissoirs. The original version no longer exists).

    In this work a spider is trapped in the pissoir in the same way that spiders are trapped in baths.

    The spider hopefully adds an extra touch of humour to a work that is already humourous. The humour partly resides in the fact that it’s unusual to see a spider where you don’t expect to see one (in an artwork), but at the same time the spider is exactly where you’d expect to see one (trapped in a piece of bathroom sanitary ware).

    I’m a frequent visitor to Tate Modern, and whenever I look at Duchamp’s Fountain I’m struck by how esthetically pleasing the form of Fountain is. I’m not sure whether or not Duchamp thought this himself or whether he chose the pissoir with no esthetic considerations involved.

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  • Contemporary art crucifix

    Contemporary art sculpture – cross

    Cross

    Wood, plastic, acrylic, torch, 18x18x11cm. November 2020

    This sculpture suggests a contemporary art Christian crucifix.

    A sculpture formed from a wood block, plastic hands and a small hand torch.
    The work is composed of very simple components (the wood block is a piece of 2×2). In this version the cross is dramatically lit by a pocket torch.
    The work bears a resemblence to a Christian crucifix, although this is actually an emergent property of the work rather than a primary aim. The initial concept behind the sculpture is of hands that also resemble wings attached to a geometrically simple form (In this case a rectangular block, in other cases spheres).
    The position of the hands give an impressing of offering embrace, while also giving the impression of being elevating (when the hands are seen as wings). These are properties that enhance the work’s identification to the ideals of Christianity. The feeling of elevation in the work is enhanced by the fact that the cross seems to be suspended in the air. It is actually firmly rooted on a dark blue, flat horizontal surface, with the atmosphere of elevation being provided by the simple dramatic light of the hand torch.
    You may also notice that one hand is black while the other is white, which may be seen as a symbol of inclusivity and universal human togetherness.

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  • Milk bottle heads – sculpture from recycled rubbish

    Contemporary art - sculpture from recycled rubbish or junk - milk bottle heads

    Milk bottle heads
    Plastic milk bottles, ink. September 2018

    Plastic milk bottles with human heads drawn onto them.
    These heads are an example of art created from rubbish. Their recycled nature is partly an observation on our throw-away consumer culture.
    The bottles are surprisingly head-shaped, reminding me somewhat of various non-Western forms of sculpture. I particularly like the way that the milk bottle handles make very interesting and bizarre noses.
    I’m in the process of making several dozen of them, as their impact is increased as their numbers increase.

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  • Last Cigarette – a surreal found object sculpture.

    Surrealist dada contemporary sculpture involvinng pareidolia - cigarette and shoe last

    Last Cigarette. Found object sculpture.

    Shoe last, cigarette, lamp base. May 2018

    A surreal or dada found object sculpture made from a cobbler’s shoe last with a cigarette inserted into the circular hole in the last that is designed to accommodate a handle. The last is mounted on a lamp stand.

    The sculpture utilises the human sensory condition known as pareidolia, the interpretation of shapes as human faces, to create a surreal head. Pareidolia is essential for the interpretation of a lot of art, especially art in which faces are merely suggested by, say, a few strokes of a paintbrush. In some art pareidolia is actually a curse though – think of the number of abstract images that are ruined when you see an unintentional face in them.
    The sculpture’s title, Last Cigarette, utilises the human tendency to reinterpret words to create puns – in this case the word ‘last’ referring to the wooden cobbler’s last, meaning that the cigarette is the last’s last cigarette.

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  • Drawing Machine – a barograph repurposed for the purposes of art

    Dada or surrealist sculpture - a barograph creating an automatic drawing

    Drawing machine.

    Study for a proposed sculpture. Photograph of a barograph, digital manipulation. January 2017

    A photograph of a barograph digitally altered so that the arm of the barograph appears to be creating a fine pen and ink drawing of a landscape.
    A barograph normally draws a graph recording air pressure over the course of time on a sheet of graph paper attached to a rotating drum.
    This barograph is in the spirit of surrealism and dada – it is a scientific instrument appropriated for the purposes of art (In C P Snow’s two cultures thesis this would possibly count as cultural appropriation).

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