2003-4
UK Spaces: Holographic drawings, volumes and site specific installation.
Butler Institute of American Art, Beecher Center Wing, Youngstown, Ohio, USA.
Known for its encouragement of art and technology, the Butler Institute of American Art has mounted several solo and group exhibitions of artists who incorporate various aspects of technology within their practice.
Pepper's eleven month show included 13, 10 x 8 inch reflection holograms, produced over the previous 15 years.
A site-specific installation ‘Sight Lines Wall’ was also installed and ran along several meters of the exhibition space in the Butler’s Beecher Wing, part of their Center for Technology in the Arts.
‘Sight Lines Wall’ has developed from work first shown in Pepper’s solo exhibition at Gallery 286, London, UK. Here Pepper describes some of the background relating to the London installation.
Because the technology and optical/illusionistic effect of holographic images there is a overwhelming unfamiliarity (when compared to more traditional forms of art). Holograms tend to be framed and hung in straight lines on gallery walls. This method of display offers the viewer a reassuring point of reference (and method of presentation). Perhaps it makes it easier to engage with, or 'accept' holography as a viable visual process.
In “Sight Lines” the holograms have been taken off the wall and placed horizontally, just above the floor. Prior to being installed in the gallery the hanging metal surfaces have been allowed to rust, out in the open, arranged in a straight line. There is an ‘environmental’ and physical continuity between each metal surface and the pattern of rusting it has received. Each of the small circular holograms contain images of liquid, the shadows of which exist just above the surface of the glass which holds the holographic emulsion. Like the pattern created by the rust, these shadows could not be predicted. The liquids used on the metal and during the recording of the hologram have ‘drawn’ their own marks over the surfaces.
This reference to ‘drawing’ is a common and reoccurring element in Pepper’s work. The metal sheets are the dimensions of half a sheet of A4 paper, an accessible size found all over Europe. Something people write on, draw on, photocopy on, laser print on. Here the size has been divided along the longest length to produce a shape onto which long lines could be drawn. Each hologram has been chosen to complement the pattern of marks on the rusted metal sheet. They are ‘subdued’. green/brown, red and an integral part of each metal rectangle, not simply surrounded by a ‘frame’ to make them convenient to display.
Exhibition dates: 25th May 2003 - April 2004
