I saw this review in the Skinny and fell in love with the artist Flo Gordon, if not just for their actual art then for their attitude towards it. Here's the artist explaining their work via theskinny;
"All my work is a stew. Here are the ingredients:
* 200g Humour/Subconscious Humour A lot of my work has sprouted from an aversion to this statement: ‘Instinctive humour does not exist.’ I think it does. Evidence for my belief would be: objects wiggling and the way in which orange is funnier than grey. Eggs (specifically fried eggs) are inexplicably amusing too.
I believe we often misinterpret the pleasure that we experience when viewing an artwork as joy instead of finding it funny on a basic level. Freud’s Relief theory of humour states that laughter is a physical release of tensions built up by sub-conscious sexual desires triggered by conscious or subconscious associations to sex. The humour I believe in draws from the opposite, more naive end of the spectrum. Humour can be found in colour combination, irregular shapes, challenged symmetry or even the banal and utterly bland.
* 3 tbsp Colour When I was a child I learned to cross my eyes. I crossed my eyes whenever I could so that details would disappear and colours would radiate.
* 1 tsp ‘The Useless’ I enjoy ‘degrading’ my work. Most art is completely ‘useless’ and I wish to highlight this. But it is the useless that connects us to raw spirit as it embodies our need to be and do without cause.
* 50g Urges/Equality I would like the viewer to want to prod and squeeze. I tinker with installation so that the viewer connects with the space through intuitive sensory understanding as opposed to calculated logic. You knew all this anyway.
During my Degree Show I watched as a contemporary art collector, a mother of three (primary school teacher) and her children responded in exactly the same way towards my work, which meant a lot."
"All my work is a stew. Here are the ingredients:
* 200g Humour/Subconscious Humour A lot of my work has sprouted from an aversion to this statement: ‘Instinctive humour does not exist.’ I think it does. Evidence for my belief would be: objects wiggling and the way in which orange is funnier than grey. Eggs (specifically fried eggs) are inexplicably amusing too.
I believe we often misinterpret the pleasure that we experience when viewing an artwork as joy instead of finding it funny on a basic level. Freud’s Relief theory of humour states that laughter is a physical release of tensions built up by sub-conscious sexual desires triggered by conscious or subconscious associations to sex. The humour I believe in draws from the opposite, more naive end of the spectrum. Humour can be found in colour combination, irregular shapes, challenged symmetry or even the banal and utterly bland.
* 3 tbsp Colour When I was a child I learned to cross my eyes. I crossed my eyes whenever I could so that details would disappear and colours would radiate.
* 1 tsp ‘The Useless’ I enjoy ‘degrading’ my work. Most art is completely ‘useless’ and I wish to highlight this. But it is the useless that connects us to raw spirit as it embodies our need to be and do without cause.
* 50g Urges/Equality I would like the viewer to want to prod and squeeze. I tinker with installation so that the viewer connects with the space through intuitive sensory understanding as opposed to calculated logic. You knew all this anyway.
During my Degree Show I watched as a contemporary art collector, a mother of three (primary school teacher) and her children responded in exactly the same way towards my work, which meant a lot."
