Richard Rooks
(42 years old. Born in United Kingdom. Lives in: Falmouth)
University Colleg Falmouth
Using pseudo-methodologies inspired by anthropology, archaeology or social history, my work pieces together ephemeral and very partial evidence to articulate ideas around English national identity. It could be called a long-term-time-based practice as the work is designed to be looked at as a social document for the future, yet has roots in a time before I was born. Memory and nostalgia become tools to access, analyse and comment on the relationships between the English past and the English present.
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Work of art I would like to make
'The Heritage Collection' is a series of four large scale wall-pieces (2m x 2.5m), each one consisting of photoshopped fragments of found photographs lazertransed directly onto the wall. The images are grouped into categories – Skies of 2033, Hedges of 2008, Trees of 1983 and Fields of 1958, which follow a chart-like format reminiscent of encyclopaedia illustrations, Guardian posters, swatch pallets or the periodic table. But do the images correspond to the dates under which they are grouped? How accurate are these colours of landscape when they have been reproduced through photography, print and digital processes? What is implied about the development of English-British ideas of the landscape and the environment?
The work follows on from a previous sequence of charts with the deliberately hokey title of 'From The Summer of Love to the Winter of Discontent – A Social History of Britain from 1967 to 1979'. These charts also used fragments of found imagery as a means to question how we consider historical knowledge. In the same way, these proposed new charts use a pseudo–scientific language to look at ideas of ‘Deep England’. The 25 year time-spans are used as demarcation points to cover a period of 75 years – the traditional life-expectancy of a human. Time is an intrinsic part of the work – lazertransing the images directly onto the wall ultimately means their being covered or painted over when the show has finished. The work has the potential to lie hidden until rediscovered at a later date.
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My Artworks (6)
Click on the images to enlarge
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