Spitting Madness
Carolyn Bayliss
Internal and external comms, creating those little snippets. How do your remote and multicultural teams gel? Does it matter? HR policies.
I’m sure I remember someone writing about Monica Dolan’s “spitting madness” in her portrayal of Rosemary West in Appropriate Adult. This term makes me think about one of the table installation pieces Paul McGowan produced in the 90s. The piece makes me recall those relationships that we have all been in but cannot walk away from.
I wrote to Paul to discuss how he conceived his works in particular the table and his War Child pieces and this was his reply.
“I spent 3 years developing the War Child works. It was a very disturbing body of work to develop as everything was based on original source material. All the images were constructed from photos of harrowing scenes of violence and devastation as a result of war and how children were caught up and used in the process.
If you look at the heads on the figures they are actually made up from bits of gun barrels and one of the mouths that is used repeatedly on these biomorphic heads was actually developed from a 12 year old Palestinian child's mouth. The boy was shot while he sucked a sweet. He still had the sweet in his mouth when he died and in the images it looks like a tongue. That work looked into child prostitution and rape which are by products of war and then the conversion of children into soldiers. After I completed that body of work I said to myself never again and I spent the next few years pursuing less aggressive subject matter. I've always been haunted by that series and now years later I'm going to delve back into the horror of war and produce a series of works for the Stop The War Organisation in London.
When I get asked about my early works that were produced pre internet they are devoid of the usual dialogue that's readily available and recorded in precise detail of how I was thinking at the time. So when I get asked about a piece it’s usually the case where people describe how it looked from some old memory and I tend to make around 5 or 6 variations of each piece and I can never remember the titles correctly but I usually can recall the series title. The red table came from a series titled "Send and Receive" they did have individual titles within that but the 90s was a long time ago and it was a very blurry time for me.
For me the table was always about how people self analyse themselves and strive to perfect and understand their life. The conjoined chair made it impossible to slide out so you can be seated and the sheet of glass that divided either side of the table only gave you a faint transparent reflection of yourself. The speakers were embedded into each side of the table and just played a faint echo of whatever sound was being produced in the vicinity of the table at that time whether it's footsteps or people's voices. The bowl that was embedded into the table surface always remained empty, I liked it like that because people always had to try and fill it. That piece always had a profound effect on people. As a matter of fact that piece was stored away and was stolen when art thieves raided my studio in 2011.”
You will find Paul McGowan frequently exhibiting in London and other places. His more recent work, 'The side effects of skipping' is to be exhibited at The Mall Gallery in London in November as part of the discerning eye series. I asked Paul how he conceived this piece.
“The drawing started life as a 1950s American photo of two white children skipping and I changed the racial status of the photo and drew it as a black girl and white boy skipping together as it was something you wouldn't see back then.” It was amazing how the image totally changed just by making a few subtle adjustments. A lot of my new drawings reflect this new way of working for me. My current body of work is going to take another maybe two years until it's ready for release and that's for the 'Stop The War' organisation. I think it's the best work I've ever produced. It's definitely going to be my last major body of work. Actually I've said that before and there's always just one more.”
