Using images from the photograph series Fourteen Stops #1 as it’s start point, this work continues the exploration of perception through the use of chance.

In addition to the chance composition of the original photographs using the photo-stencil screen print process invites more elements of chance. The photo stencil process used to make the prints inherently involves uncontrolled, chance outcomes. Which parts of the original image will be picked out in the stencil is not predictable. In the printing process the way that the paint physically comes through onto the paper involves a degree of chance and accident. And the interactions of the printed image over the background layer is another element of randomness.

Fourteen Stops #2 Oct 2022

Screen prints onto A3 cartridge paper.

Fourteen Stops #2

As displayed at the Week 5 RSA Exhibition Oct 2022 (alongside Fourteen Stops #1)

Of course, while this work is intended to be an exploration of surrendering to chance, many aesthetic decisions actually came into play during its creation. How to display the photographs, and the choice of colours of the screen prints, to name just two. It’s very difficult to remove all agency in the making of art. Is it even desirable? What I find interesting is how the two combine.

Reflecting on the exhibition I think it was a mistake to display the two works Fourteen Stops #1 and #2 together. They detract from each other. Fourteen Stops #2 asks more questions of the viewer if presented without the accompanying photographs.

One of the Fourteen Stops #2 prints (a detail)

as displayed at the Women’s History Month Exhibition: Beyond the Muse, March 2023, Reading University Library foyer