CHRISTIAN NEWBY – THE DRUM, THE CHIME, THE SCRAPE, THE SPLASH, THE JERK
2021-04-05Newby incorporates techniques from industrial textile production into a drawing practice that aims to subvert the assumptions pertaining to value and skill within fine and applied arts practice, as well as challenge the design principles and craft rhetoric commonly associated with carpet tufting.
The works on display are made using a handheld industrial carpet-tufting gun and created through a process of improvised drawing. He is currently looking at the carpet-tufting gun as a case study in how the roles of artist, artisan and fabricator are determined by terminal belief systems in productivity and commodification. His unique technique of ‘drawing with carpet’ redirects the manufacturing function of the gun and instead explores its capacities as a mark-making tool, while observing it as a fundamental equivalent to the pencil, spray can, paintbrush and tattoo needle. His works carry an awareness of the anonymity of globalized commercial production and mass labour, in direct contrast with the skilful mastery equated with artisanal handicraft.
Opposite – Raspberry-Jail, 2020
Exhibition runs through to May 29th, 2021
Patricia Fleming Gallery
80 Nicholson St
G5 9ER
Glasgow
