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Dickie Webb (UK)
Multimedia Installation (video, sound, prints, photographs, objects)The project is implemented in the frame of the “Art Commune” International Artist-in-Residency Program (ACSL)
The project is funded by the European Cultural Foundation
With support of Modern Art Museum, YerevanModern Art Museum, Yerevan
November 19-25, 2015
A new body of work by artist Dickie Webb brings together intermedia works that investigate the current connection to the Yerevan and its socio-political environment, landscape and beyond. These experimental works draw from liminal sites and objects that are used to manage space. Webbs’ process abstracts and subverts these findings, utilizing photography, sculptural elements and new media technologies; it is the anthropomorphic qualities that underscore the works. Just like liminal space these works exist in an unknown state, straddling both real and virtual, Webb does not imply directly what they mean rather he suggest they are a means to reflect on the potential of what could be.
One of the core works in Beyond Tinted is a digital audio/visual collage (U-Dys-Het). At first glance, this piece draws together abstract sounds with cropped visual samples. These are composed somehow in an accidental yet familiar form, woven in ways that will please, annoy whilst sometimes confuse. However, it has a certain ideological arrangement. The importance of the local “topos” is linked to their present resemblance of either a utopian, dystopian or heterotopian state. According to the artist, the audio/visual samples are organized in compliance with the above-mentioned moduses. The interplay between the sounds and visuals allows the spectator to “interpret” the “philosophy” of the presented topography.
The works of this project challenge especially that part of local people that have to reconsider their present landscape and gain some form of clarity out from behind their tinted view (tinted glasses of the big cars of nоuveau riche). The final works vary in fabrication and are part of a wide palette that enables Webb to present intimate moments, to view our present existence from an altered perspective and reflect on our own being.
Artist Statement
Dickie Webb operates his art practice from the position of a wanderer, moving consistently over the years, dislocating himself from societal norms. With few constants Webb’s peripatetic lifestyle means he has had to adapt and rethink our connection to landscape, altering his comprehension of what is considered home and the role of society’s expectations.
Examining our existence Webb questions that which is real and what is otherwise virtual within our landscape, utilising Marc Auges’ “non-places” and Michel Foucaults’ “heterotopias” as initial starting points. Webb uses these imaginary and transient sites as a means to reveal anomalies, inaccuracies similar to those displayed within human personalities.
This connection to space through its anthropomorphic qualities prompts Webb to consider space as representational of current issues experienced within both the individual and collective. Using space as a metaphor and as a medium Webb looks past the architectural structure and explores the liminal qualities, discovering this blurred arena from an outsider’s perspective.
Processes: Interactive installations, photography, site-specific installation, sculpture, print, sensory based media light, sound and scents, interventions, casting, drawing, constructive and destructive processes.
Materials: Paint, plaster, bronze, aluminium, soap, salt, concrete, sugar, ice, glass, steel, wood, resin, ink, milk and wax.
Objects: Cardboard boxes, furniture, envelopes and car windscreens.
Born in Oxford (UK) in 1979, Dickie Webb currently divides his time between New Zealand, USA and the UK. Webb studied for a BA Honours in Intermedia at Edinburgh College of Art; part of his degree was spent at the State University of New York, Purchase College. Prior to his degree Webb studied at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Since graduating Webb has continued travelling working in Japan, New Zealand and Chile whilst also undertaking artist residencies in Athens, Greece (SNEHTA) and currently here in Yerevan (ACSL). He has exhibited works in the UK, USA and Greece.
Recent Exhibitions:
2014 THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW – Art Athina, Athens, Greece
2014 Boundaries – Artscapes, Athens, Greece
2013 Unsettled Certainties – Aghias Zonis 1 Space, Athens, Greece.
2013 One Action, Ones Actions – Cultybraggan POW Camp, Perthshire, UK
2013 Newhaven Station – Edinburgh, UK
Acknowledgments: ACSL, European Cultural Foundation , Yerevan Modern Art Museum, director of the Museum Nune Avetisyan and its organized staff.