ANDREW ATCHISON
Figure in the Round (Candle)
06 Nov 2019—24 Nov 2019

This exhibition will constitute the third iteration of Figure in the Round (Candle). Each time this work is remade, in a new space with a new group of artists, it is different. The form of the work developed through thinking about orientation as the product of decision-making processes, rather than an inherent condition, that reflects both the individuals involved and the context in which a determination is made. Abstractly, I am interested in how we perceive ideas of uprightness, frontality and forward progress. Concretely, I am interested in how these ideas are manifested through sculpture, architecture and landscape.

Here, the domestic form of the candle substitutes the classical, idealised sculptural body. Dissimilar ideas as to the orientation of the form, its front, back and sides, are metaphoric of how real bodies are perceived, as either straight-forward, or queer-oblique.

The question of how to choose the front of a perfectly round cylinder might sound like a joke (a paradox at best) but, as it is, we live on a perfect sphere, in indifferent black and pierced space, that apparently has an upside and down. This work asks how is that possible, and how do such judgements buttress our social interactions?

Figure in the round (Candle) 2019, white candle, six ideas of 'front', biro on paper, photographic colour correction gels, dimensions variable.