greg DAVILLE
artists
statement
Rescued Items from Babel
Rescued Items
from Babel is a series of digitally manipulated photographic prints. The figure
is employed in staged environments to explore the failings and aspirations of
visual, verbal, and written communication; particularly in relation to the
thought process and the creative act. The images form a group of self portraits
that use visual states of collapse as a metaphor for the human condition,
particularly with regard to planning and aspiration. Each piece includes one or
more figures posed with a variety of props: the artists own notebooks and
miniature ladders have been use thus far. The recorded constructions are
further developed into impossible structures through photo-manipulation.
Colour. Approximate size A2. 42 by 59.4 cms.
As this series
has progressed other themes underlying the above have begun to make themselves
apparent. One of these relates to how I became involved in art in the first
place. As a child growing up in a
consistently and highly argumentative family, my escape was to sit at a table
in my bedroom and draw. I would make small books of illustrated stories. Now
that I am older I realise that this was not an activity solely undertaken as an
enjoyable pastime; it was a way of finding some peace beyond the verbal chaos
of my parents arguments. Today I will often find myself awoken to this
association when I am at my own desk, happily scribbling into my notebook.
As a result of
the conscious and unconscious themes in this series I have become interested in
the potential (hidden) associations that can be inherent in the work place, and
specifically the desk. This prescribed area is like a building site.
Regardless of the type of work we do, whether domestic, commerce or art, this
is where things are collated and constructed. In other words, it is a
generative space. This is more evident now that the computer has become a
household object, means of production, and means of communication.
greg DAVILLE
biography
Recent Practise
2002 - 2004
Greg Daville has
been a practising artist since leaving the Royal College of Art in 1985. His
work is idea led and has resulted in art made in a variety of media including
digitally manipulated photography, internet art, interactive CD-Rom,
installation and text. In the last four years he has focussed on new media
work, but complements this with traditional media.
In 2002 he
travelled throughout mainland Europe exhibiting an interactive CD Rom book
called Knob: [monkey opera]: showing in film/multi-media festivals in Cannes
(selected for Milia 2002), Rome, Croatia and Yugoslavia. He was invited to
lecture in Rome and was awarded a two month E.M.A.R.E. residency in Werkleitz,
Germany.
Knob: [monkey
opera] was purchased by the Biblioteque Nationale De France. Paris, France,
and by the Victoria & Albert Museum. London.
In 2003 he took
part in 'Originate' (Gallery 47), and Reduced (Centre of Attention with
Century Gallery) in London.
In a joint
collaboration with poet Catherine Smith he was commissioned to make Second
Skin; an image sequence which was projected onto the faade of Saint Mary in
the Castle Arts Centre on the cliffs of Hastings.
At the end of the
year he exhibited a new series of digitally constructed photographs entitled Rescued
Items from Babel in Brighton, and was awarded and Individual Artists Grant
from the Arts Council, South East.
In 2004 he was
chosen to show his work in The Arts Council, South East premises as part of the
Work on Walls project. Two pieces from the Rescued Items from Babel series
were selected for the Siggraph Conference /
Festival in Los
Angeles, for which he was awarded a second grant from the Arts Council. He
presently working on the second part of the Rescued Items from Babel series
for which he has recently shot new photos in the Arts Council premises.
In November, 2004
he began a residency/exhibition in the Head Offices of SEEDA in Guilford,
England.
His work can be
seen in the Secrets of Award-Winning Digital Artists, edited by Jeremy Sutton
and Daryl Wise for Wiley Publishing and on his own website, which I would
like to submit as a link with IDAA: www.site-to-be-destroyed.co.uk
Submitted Pieces
Estate 24
by 22.77 inches 300
d.p.i.
Slump 24
by 17.53 inches 300
d.p.i.
Resignation 24
by 16 inches 300
d.p.i.
Estate
is a
visualisation of the urban condition, and the contemporary humans reciprocal
link with architecture and its surroundings. The abstract buildings,
(digitally constructed from my own note books), thrust triumphantly from the
suited man, but can equally be read as weighing down on the figure which can be
seen as no more than the foundation stone.
Slump
Seemingly
documented from a bizarre performance or break down. The figure is at odds with
the Corporate environment in which it was shot, (The Arts Council new offices
in Brighton). The shape of the pile of books mimics the diagonal of a business
forecast graph: which can be read as rising or slumping. Collapse as a state of
resolution.
Resignation
Referencing
Goyas etching The Sleep of Reason, the figure is collapsed from exhaustion
under the colossal Monolith of filing boxes. Contemporary England is fast
becoming a Nanny State, although the piece is not just a political reference
to the age of accountability we live in; it is ironic, and tries to say
something about human frailty, and the difficulty we all face in finding our
place within the world.
Greg Daville
Flat 3
16, Brunswick
Terrace
Hove
East Sussex
BN3 1HL
England
U.K.
2005 IDAA
PO BOX 437
Elsternwick 3185
Melbourne Australia