Second Derivative

date > April 2014
media > oil on canvas ( 4 x ( 100 x 140 cm)); acrylic on archival prints ( 2 x A3 ); video 10min54s (acrylic frame and ipad sold separately)
size > 10min 54sec (or 2 x 5min 25)
status > available

(In collaboration with Sarah Knill-Jones)

> Screen Shot:

> Second Derivative is a series of four paintings and a video, all of which are in many ways the documentation of a performance. Working with Sarah Knill-Jones with whom I have collaborated on a number of occasions in the past (see below), I seek to explore the limits of originality in contemporary painting.

> In the first instance, I ask Sarah Knill-Jones to copy and enlarge an exerpt of a small painting, itself generated for this purpose from imitations of abstract expressionist painters from the past. As she paints, I use identical brushes and paints to copy every gesture she makes in real time. In the second half of the piece, our roles are reversed.

> The title refers to the derivative nature of contemporary paintign; to the fact that this is itself a second incarnation of a previous piece (Control Condition, see below); and to the mathematical concept of a derivative equation: one that describes change but looses some original information.

> Sarah has a long-standing interest in copies and repetitions within painting of her own. In our collaborations we discuss ideas until we find processes or protocols which we are both interested in experimenting with. We tend to take it in turn to take the lead as to the final outcome but even when we agree exactly on the form of the collaboration, the collaborative output tends to read differently in the context of our two different practices. Within the wider body of my work, the pseudo-scientific proces, unemotional and detached, is more important while in Sarah's practice the work is seen more in the context of translation, historicity and the act of repetition.

> Additional images:

> As shown at Maximiliaan’s Fine Art for exhibition Kif-Kif.

> Shown in exhibition duplicata as follows. All four paintings were hung on a wall in what used to be an old classroom. On a table where the teachers desk would have been the studies we worked from were displayed with the part we copied masked off with translucent graph paper. In between the studies the video above was looping on a small screen. All this was mounted in a Perspex display case:

> Related work:

> Shown in following exhibition: