A weird time to make work.
Over the last few months, we’ve all experienced things that we would have never thought we could. And as the world changed, so did we. Our routines, our diets, our relationships, our emotions all has changed. Especially the point to make work, there’s a sense of guilt I had experienced during lockdown. A guilt for making work, its been hard for everyone out there but it is very hard to be an ‘artist’ during lockdown. You feel there must be other things more important to do think or do. You feel that you must carry the weight of the global situation. Here is photos of all the works I had made during these times.
My main focus during lockdown was understanding that everyone’s practices have drastically changed, so our expectations of art has changed too. During lockdown, my work became more focused around digital power structures and how I can replicate that with physical materials. The polystyrene blocks and bricks I made were there to replicate a ‘post apocalyptic’ method digital screens and neo liberal digital power structures such as facebook, twitter, instagram and the ‘like’.
The materiality of the work became very present over the last few months. I’ve been struggling to find the relationship between my concept and the visual aspects of it. I’ve been more observant of the structures of objects, specifically walls, how they’re made and what they represent. The way I see my bricks, are piled ontop of each other like the foundations of a structure.
A best way to see what work I’ve done is on my instagram account: @stephennulty
