Iain Hales
London
My work stakes as its territory the space between painting and sculpture. While the works are often of a formal nature, the use of colour amongst the assemblages addresses painterly concerns. A sensitivity to materials and a range of scale within the work creates further juxtapositions, suggesting reference points beyond these formal concerns, from architecture, art and design to more everyday cultural elements. The works have a plural language, collaging a range of art historical references, including modernism, minimalism, Pop and Arte-Povera. In doing so they resist classification, creating a restless mutability.
This engagement with painting is evidenced most obviously through my works for the wall. Whilst technically sculptures, essentially they are concerned with flatness - approached from the front they operate as abstract compositions, until they are viewed from the side, at which point they expand into three-dimensions. This friction within the work is a crucial element of my practice.
This sense of friction is also demonstrated through the range of materials found within the works, from 'high art' materials such as chalk gesso and powdered pigments to rubber floor tiles and concrete reinforcing mesh. While there are evident contrasts in the status or hierarchy of these materials, there is also an equivalence within them, with the sheen of a coloured rubber floor tile as rewarding as a polished, painted gesso surface. Beyond the sensual qualities of these materials, I'm interested in their semiotic associations; these play an important role in prompting a response to the works, each suggesting a range of connotations.
My practice has always had a keen engagement with architecture. In earlier work this was expressed quite directly, now it is used in a subtler manner: through material choices, classical systems of scale, the grid, and architectural forms. I am also interested in the notion of the romantic ruin and temporality.
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