At first, these are paintings about painting: images that oscillate between artifice and artifact. My paintings strongly reference a form of trompe l’oeil painting that proliferated in the seventeenth century in Northern Europe: a specific form of illusionism called rack painting. From here I paint an array of selected objects to appear as ‘pinned’ or ‘taped’ in low relief on a wooden surface. Objects are often chosen for their residual value in the artists’ studio such as masking tape left over from the painting process or a blank piece of paper: materials to be utilised at the very beginning or discarded at the end of the painting process. Certain questions emerge about the processes of painting, of illusion, representation and how artists utilise their source materials. The notion of authenticity is central to my artistic enquiry. As Jean Baudrillard wrote in The System of Objects: “We are fascinated by what has been created…because the moment of creation cannot be reproduced.”
The viewer is often disarmed by the meticulous nature of their representation and the sense of authority communicated by their display. And yet, despite their whimsical irony and scrupulous attention to detail, the historical veracity of these objects is in constant doubt.
Website: www.alastairjohngordon.com
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