christophermadden

Political protest art – the Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed

The Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed. Hammer and nails sculpture.

Hammer, nails. This version, May 2022. Original concept, 2010.

This sculpture is partly a metaphor for oppression and rebellion.
The work shows a hammer nailed to a surface by nails.
Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits.
How did the nails manage to impale the hammer? Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not necessarily a metaphor for the oppressed rising up to overthrow their oppressor (the hammer) using their own power, but are more like the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer that’s been overthrown.
The use of handyman’s tools such as hammers, pliers and spanners is a recurring feature of my artwork.

The work in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, 2022

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Metamorphosis – recycling in contemporary art

Metamorphosis (from pie containers to insect larvae)

Wood (recycled food containers). 2021.

An assemblage or sculpture fabricated from recycled wooden pie containers.
The pie containers, for Charlie Bigham pies (mainly fish pies with the odd cauliflower cheese in there), are stacked as curved forms suggestive of insect larvae such as caterpillars or grubs.
Insect larvae undergo metamorphosis when they change into the imago or mature form of the insect. Here the pie containers have undergone a similar metamorphosis by turning into the insect larvae.

This work reflects my interest in the natural world and the environment, as well as my concerns for environmental issues caused by human activity (this work being an example of recycling or upcycling of consumer waste).
An example of art made from scrap material. A form of arte povera perhaps.

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Unstable construction assemblage

Unstable construction made of G clamps

G clamps. 40x40x40cm (variable). 2021.

A sculpture or assemblage composed of G clamps.
G clamps are usually used for holding work together temporarily, such as when components are being glued together. Here the G clamps are holding on to each other so that they are part of a structure themselves rather than an instrument for creating a structure. The angle of the piece gives the structure a feeling of instability. This could have allusions to the instability of the modern world that we have constructed through our use of industry and technology, where the very means by which we have constructed our world leads to its inherent precariousness, especially now that we are inflicting such serious damage on the environment.

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Abstract acrylic painting: linear and curved forms

Linear and curved forms

Acrylic, paper, collage. 35 x 25cm. 2022.

A painting from a series of abstract acrylic artworks featuring strongly linear black forms interacting with curving coloured forms.
Although the black linear elements in the painting are abstract their composition give the impression of a living entity such as an animal or a person – an effect that is heightened by the coloured curving forms, some of which hint at anatomical features such as eyes or ears.

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Sculpture composed of expanded polystyrene packaging

Polystyrene Idol

Expanded polystyrene packaging. 35 x 55cm. 2021.

A sculpture fabricated from expanded polystyrene packaging – an example of upcycled art.
Upcycling, or the repurposing of waste or redundant material, is a common phenomenon in art, especially recently since the rise of environmentally orientated art or eco art (and the invention of the word upcycling).
Of course the practice is probably as old as art itself.
I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice the sculptural qualities of pieces of polystyrene packaging.

I call the work Polystyrene Idol because the shapes of the polystyrene in the piece are suggestive of the carved idols of some cultures. In the context of Western culture such an idol may be seen as an idol linked to the cult of consumerism, especially because the polystyrene is the material that protects consumer goods when they are in trannsit, and it is also the discarded waste material once the consumer goods have been acquired by the purchaser.

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Rorschach mask

Rorschach Mask

Watercolour, acrylic, paper, collage. 30cm x 21cm. 2021.

A watercolour Rorschach pattern, or inkblot test pattern, with a panel of stripes in acrylic collaged onto it, giving the impression of a mask.
The type of watercolour paint used to create the Rorschach diagram (Daniel Smith lunar black) creates a particularly intricate and textured inkblot pattern.

Below, the image framed.

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Painting of linear and curved forms – acrylic on paper

Linear and curved forms

Acrylic, paper, collage. 35x25cm. 2022.

An abstract acrylic painting featuring a strongly linear black form overlaid by curving coloured forms (some of which are collage while others are painted directly onto the paper).
Although the black linear elements are abstract they convey the impression of a dynamic animal form. This is heightened by the coloured curving forms, some of which hint at eyes or of other anatomical features.

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Nailed and clamped sculpture

Clamped and nailed

G clamp, nails, wooden sphere. 20 x 20 x 15cm. 2022.

This sculpture or assemblage is almost an accidental artwork.
The nails in the sphere were put there to attach other objects to. The G clamp is there to hold the two halves of the sphere together (It’s composed of two hemispheres glued together.
One of the skills needed in art is the ability to see the unexpected.

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Perception-challenging artwork

Shapes at the edge of perception

Papier mache, acrylic, card. 30x21cm. 2021.

A wall hung artwork in which a matte black hemisphere protrudes from a flat matte black surface. Due to the darkness of the surface the protruding hemisphere is quite hard to see (although in this photograph it is lit in a way that makes it reasonably visible). Even less obvious than the protruding hemisphere, the matte black circle at the centre of the metallic area is actually a hemispherical indentation. This indentation is very rarely noticed by observers.
The work is an investigation into perception, optical illusions and expectation.

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Drawing from the subconscious

Abstract figure drawn from the imagination

Pencil on paper. 2021.

A semi-abstract figure drawn from the imagination with no preparation.
I have a feeling that my semi-floating figures like this owe something to the Symbolist painter Odilon Redon.

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Prancing figure: sketch

Prancing figure

Charcoal on paper, digital colouring. 2022.

A sketch of a semi-abstract figure in a landscape. The figure is of a type that I’ve drawn on and off for the past thirty years, so it obviously has some sort of significance.

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Assemblage of wood blocks

Wood block assemblage

2″x2″ wood, acrylic paint. 2022. Height: 12cm, width: variable.

An assemblage of blocks of wood painted very matte black on the sides and bright white on the top, positioned so that they almost suggest a formation, but not quite. Developed from a chess piece that I created, in which similar blocks formed a more regular chess board formation.
This photo was taken at my solo show in the gallery at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall.

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Op Art image

Op art image

Digital image created in Affinity Designer. 2022

Op art has got many detractors, as can be deduced by the number of artists who have created optical or geometric art who very specifically claim that their art is not Op art.

Personally, I like it very much, partly because of my interest in optics. I tend to view it partly as a scientific endeavour, with its forms expressing something of the underlying nature of perception.

This image has more than a hint of Victor Vasarely about it. It didn’t look particularly like a Vasarely until I’d nearly finished it, when I applied a ‘bloat’ to the vertical parallel lines on the image, making them bulge (The image is digital, so that’s a very easy thing to do). Suddenly there he was – Victor Vasarely!

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Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens exhibition

Solo show, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens

May – June 2022

A general view of my solo exhibition in the gallery at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall.

More of the work in the show. Don’t forget to notice the hammer and nails.

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Artwork created from vinyl records

Vinyl Tower Assemblage

Vinyl records, mixed media. 2022

A sculpture constructed from vinyl records.
The star-shaped object at the top of the tower, which looks like a radio transmitter, is composed of pawns from a chess set (a recurring theme in my work).

The work in my solo exhibition at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance, Cornwall. May – June 2022

There’s another work composed of vinyl records here.

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Long-fingered hand

Long-fingered hand

Digitally manipulated photograph. May 2022

Image of a hand with unfeasibly long fingers
This image is an exercise in digital manipulation of photographs of the human body in order to show the way in which familiar parts of the anatomy can take on sinister or comic form (or both) with the application of small variations due to our hypersensitivity to the dimensions of the human body

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The hive mind of an ant superorganism

Superorganism of ants or the ants’ hive mind

Digital image May 2022

An image of a swarm of ants forming the shape of one giant ant.
The image is intended to convey the scientific concept of the superorganism, where the individual members of an animal community (often insects such as bees, wasps or ants) cannot exist as individuals but have to function as part of a larger unified communal entity.

The concept of the superorganism is similar to the concept of the hive mind. The hive mind is perhaps more closely identified with neural activity rather than physical activity, and in human society is associated with the concepts of collective consciousness, group think and other thought processes. Hive mind activities such as group think are not necessarily positive.

The work reflects my interest in science, evolution, the natural world and the environment. It is based on a conncept and image that I created in the 1990s for the Guardian newspaper.

Some people argue that human society is a superorganism, generally on the grounds that we live in an incredibly complex society that is full of specialisation of roles, and that society would fall apart if some of these roles were to fail to function. This definition however doesn’t take into account one of the prerequisites of a superorganism, which is that the individual organisms within the superorganism can’t survive alone. Humans can easily survive even if our complex society collapses – there are people all around the world doing that very thing right now.

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Tree and sphere. Ink drawing with collage

Tree and sphere. Ink drawing with collage

Pen and ink, gouache 30x40cm May 2022

A pen and ink sketch of a tree drawn from the imagination, with a collaged sphere painted in gouache.

The sphere is meant to have a slightly otherworldly quality about it, as though it’s from a different dimension or reality.

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A proposal for a projection of Expansion II

A proposal for a projection of the light work Expansion II (proposal/visualisation).

Video 4m 53s. 2023

A oriosal for the projection of the work Expansion II.

An impression of what the work Expansion II would look like projected onto a wall of the National Theatre in London.

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Vinyl records

Floor assemblage: vinyl records

12 inch vinyl records Dimensions variable May 2022

A sculptural work composed of a number of 12 inch vinyl LP records arranged on the floor. The records are placed on blocks to hold them above the floor.

These photos were taken at my solo exhibition at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, in 2022.

Part of the appeal of this work, to me, is in the fact that the vinyl records of which it is composed are ruthlessly precise and austere in their physical presence – perfect discs of shiny black plastic – but that they contain in themselves the information for producing music, perhaps the most ethereal of art forms. The manner in which the discs seem to hover above the ground seems to link the physical nature of the records with the floating, insubstantial nature of music. The physical delicacy of the analogue information storage system which contains the information about the music on the disks (the grooves) is also significant.

There’s another work composed of vinyl records here.

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