Paul Kneale
Poetry and Dream, 2012
Paul Kneale's work could be approached from the idea of language as an infinite set of universal possibilities. Kneale is both sensitive to these particularities and to the effects of play, slippage and distortion that happens between.
Paul Kneale explores these time/places of language through reduced and essential formal processes. His works are developed as material logics that articulate these language time/places as sculpture, video and printed matter. His materially sensibility relates to what the artist has written about as ‘the new abject’ -- a contemporary kind of trash or low status material where literal dirt is replaced by the psychological.
The new works on view at PLAZAPLAZA show several variations of his approach. The first series, Untitled (Miami Herald, New York Times, USA Today), are 'travel works' in which the artist composes poems and aphorisms that he creates in various locals by virtue of the global availability of newspapers and photocopy machines. Drawing on the papers locally available in a given city he is in, the resulting image incorporates both collage, in composing the texts, and photo-reproduction via the copier. These two commonplace technical elements mean that he can produce the pieces virtually anywhere, aided by the google translate app when necessary.
The origin of these works was during the artist's tenure at art school in London. On one occasion, a glitch in the library photocopier caused it to give endless copies without charge. Through a long process Kneale managed to 'reverse-engineer' the glitch to be a reliable 'hack' that he could use any time, allowing him free experimentation with a process he considers to be a hybrid between photography and painting.
The second series of works 'Untitled (Rotherhithe-NYC)' and 'Untitled (Rotherhithe-ROMA)' have a different reference to the place/language relation, in particular to the artist's current living and studio space in a vacant library in South London. After befriending workmen with a hydraulic lift truck he was able to remove the steel lettering attached to the library's facade. After deconstructing the sign, Kneale produced a series of mobile sculptures, arranging the former icon of Rotherhithe (a working class neighbourhood and dockland in South London) into the names of international cities that are simultaneously glamorous and banal.
Finally the artist presents a video, LOL IS OVER/ WE'RE ALL DOING SOMETIMES/ WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE FEEL, that explores language from his own Twitter account, displayed against digital backgrounds and textures. The artist uses the medium 'as a kind of sketchbook for language ideas' and the video represents his first exploration of expanding the format into another output.
