medium to large works and small acts

November 21 - December 16, 2023



installation view



installation view



installation view

 


installation view



installation view



installation view



installation view



installation view



installation view



installation view



installation view

 

For this exhibition medium to large works and small acts, Martin Poppelwell chose to introduce his work with this quote from Samuel Beckett:

"What I am saying does not mean there will henceforth be no form in art. It only means that there will be new form, and that this form will be of such a type that it admits a chaos and does not try to say that the chaos is really something else. The form and the chaos remain separate. The latter is not reduced to the former. That is why the form itself becomes a preoccupation, because it exists as a problem separate from the material it accommodates. To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."

Samuel Beckett, Comment C’est

 

Selected works


drone (wt)    1100 x 1400mm


study for lumpy mattress (wt)....   1500 x 1500mm

 


do this do that...    1500 x 1200mm


study for Ab...    700 x 600mm

 


study for Ab2...    700 x 600mm

 


chasing bee in studio (wt)...    600 x 500mm

 


chasing another bee in studio (wt),...    600 x 500mm

 

double lamp   160 x 200mm
 study for drain   900 x 200mm

 

goober study 3 peanut   50 x 20mm (variable)
 red circle study 1   25mm diameter

 


The full titles to the paintings study for lumpy mattress (wt)...; do this do that...; study for Ab...; and study for Ab2... are as follows:

study for lumpy mattress (wt), a painting should not be bigger than a bed, 1985,.SP.,I think I must have blackouts, whole sentences lost, no, not whole, perhaps I’ve missed the whole business….( S.B.,TU, pp442)

do this do that, help, help if i could only describe this place, i who am so good at describing places, walls, ceiling, floors, they are my speciality, doors, windows, what i haven't imagined in the way of windows in the course of my career, some opened up on the sea and sky, if i could put myself in a room that would be the end of the wordy-gurdy, even doorless, even windowless, nothing but the four surfaces, the six surfaces, if i could shut myself, it would be a mine, it could be a black dark, I could be motionless and fixed...

study for Ab, (A wearing shirt, crawls out of sack, halts, broods, prays, gets to his feet, takes a little bottle of pills from his shirt... (wt)...

study for Ab2, (everyone wants to leave this painting II)... i'd find a way to explore it, i'd listen to the echo, i'd get to know it, i'd get to remember it, i'd be home, i'd say what it's like, in my home, instead of any old thing, this place, if i could describe this place, portray it, i've tried, i feel no place, no place around me, there's no end to me. i don't know what it is, it isn't flesh, it doesn't end, its' like the air..

 

 

Details of works