I have seen this work @ the Stone Space in Leytonstone love the simple yet evocative nature of her work. Questioning beauty and the natural.
Saturday, 27 September 2014
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Saturday, 13 September 2014
Karel Appel
Keran James from studio1.1 came to the show @ Chelsea and suggested that I look up Karel Appel as the pop up book reminded him of his work http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/appel-hip-hip-hoorah-t05077 'Hip, Hip, Horrah!'
Friday, 12 September 2014
Saturday, 23 August 2014
MA Show @ Chelsea
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| Work nearly ready aching all over and spending today Sat 23 August doing finishing touches at home |
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| Gone mad |
Sunday, 17 August 2014
Artist Statement
Artist
Statement
JOSHUA RAFFELL
The artists that inspire Joshua Raffell
are Paul McCarthy, Georges Bataille, Vitto Acconci, Nathalie Djuberg, Delaine
Le Bas, Annette Messager, Key Hiraga, Francis Alys and Hans Bellmer.
“I want to create work that I believe
to be exciting and provocative. I borrow influences from artists who inspire
me. Creating sculptures, drawings and paintings that reflect the debauchery and
underbelly of society, I’m interested in seeing what lies beneath”.
By building, breaking down and remaking,
Raffell allows each medium, to influence the other. Making it difficult to make
a definite distinction between a preparatory drawing and a sculpture. The
decisions and ideas evolve and change through the process of making. Paintings,
drawings and sculptures which all share an integral space within the process of
a finished product. Albeit momentarily as the works are broken down and mended
in an endless circle. This interaction allows freedom for him to be able to
work between the different mediums.
This state of flux allows the work to
become unique as the work starts off by being a bibliography of himself and the
difficult aspects of childhood and adulthood dealing with aspects of acceptance
of being a gay man and more complex elements of dealing with adult emotions
from sexual abuse as a young boy. The work aims to go beyond the self to a
wider concept of otherness. A term coined by Sue Golding in ‘the eight
technologies of otherness’. In other words making the work less subjective and
more objective allowing for a wider contextualization of the work and making it
more accessible to a wider audience.
Raffell suggests that we have, in many
ways, lost our way and no longer know what it means to be human. We have
suppressed and altered our natural urges evolving into the robots and ever-progressive
human computers. We have lost the ability of individual thinking. At the same
time, Raffell is quite fearless in dealing with concepts in which individual
thinking is nonsensical idea; humans are but what John Gray describes as a plague
of bacteria that is heading towards the destruction of everything around us. Something
like a giant ant’s nest of activity with, just maybe, something calling the
shots at the centre. To redeem this world of no or lost decision making, then the
act of wanking is probably the closest thing we come to actually pleasing ourselves.
Through this very act the works may be
considered shameful, naughty and over the top with the constant use of erotic
body parts in particular the phallus and the theme of masturbation, used not
only to make the work more accessible to a wider audience (rather than gay
erotica) but also to break down the white male hierarchy which is still
prevalent in the progressive modern world. One, which still dictates and
marginalizes minority or less powerful groups. Mary Douglas describes the alpha
male in ‘Purity and Danger’ as the one who labels and discriminates; who inflicts
shame to create a social order and to marginalize and push out those who may be
considered different and pose a threat to their dominate position.
Masturbation is chosen specifically for
the act of humiliation at being caught, the shame of showing or discussing. It
is significantly different from sex, a socially acceptable that causes at worse
a giggle or an expression at shock when brought into the open. Masturbation by
contrast is always suggestive of shame, embarrassment and privacy, whether the
act is private or public.
This seemingly innocent, patchwork puppet-like
figures encourage even further interaction from the viewer by featuring a projecting
handle or pulley to crank or windup the work. This inviting quality engages the
viewer to take part in and to become an integral part of the work making us
re-think sexual taboo and the things that may otherwise cause us disgust or that
are used to make us feel shame.
Toilet graffiti, from public toilets are taken
from idyllic seaside towns and villages from around England, they offer a
glimpse into the underbelly of a community where dark sexual depravity and
debauchery would otherwise cause shock, the messages of sexual graphic material
leave us wondering how genuine the tales that they tell really are, from a 15
year old boy who likes to be hard fucked by hairy Daddies to a more sedate and
shocking message of someone who wants to fit in but feels its time to die!
The work is openly gay in nature. It is
a celebration of the journey to freedom for gay people and a remembrance of the
loss for many individuals who simply were. The work could be interpreted as
political as Raffell take’s a stand against homophobia and prejudice, and
without a hint of paranoia he remains prepared for a backlash from those who
wallow in their hatred. All this is enveloped in an emotion of joy,
release and humour at the colour, pattern and sexual delight of the work.
He wants to test, and tease, both the
audience and himself to face up to their inner shame. He takes these ideas and
then re-configures these erotic sculptures, in doing so he takes the ideas of
shameful acts and places them in a very public setting. To be judged and
physically played with by its audience.
“At my most polemical I refuse to be
drawn by other peoples shame or their inner world conflicts”.
Artist C.V Joshua Raffell
Artist C.V.
Joshua Raffell
48, Granleigh
Rd,
Leytonstone,
London,
E11 4RQ
Mobile:
07986157748
http://www.studio1-1.co.uk/artist-in-residence-2011-joshua-raffell/
Born Nuneaton, England, 24th
February 1970
Exhibitions: Solo
Show, Studio1.1., 7th August 2014, Brazier
Park, Oxfordshire, ‘…To Deprave and Corrupt’ Talk and group
show, 17th-18th May 2014,
Raw Artist,
Proud Camden, 25th
Sept 2013, Sluice art fair, October
2013,
Stonespace Gallery
Group Show, ‘Reside’, Feb 2013
Studio1.1 Solo Show, ‘30 days 30 artists’ July 10th -11th
2012,
The Other Art
Fair,P3, 10th
– 13th May 2012, P3, The
Fountain, 11th – 15th April, 2012, Framless Gallery,
Art/Convertors, studio1.1 19th Jan-29th
Jan2012, studio1.1 Boutique Hook, Jan
6th -14th 2012, Solo Show. Cycled Around London Rivington Space. Book Binding with ‘Fabelists’
with work on Trailer, Oct, 2011.Sluice art-fair, London. Oct 2011. Supernormal, Oxfordshire, August 2011. Hackney Wicked, The Framing Workshop, Hackney Wick, July 2011. Solo show, studio1.1, Pop Up, May 2011. Half Baked, London, March &
April 2011. Cycled Around London
with work on Trailer, Feb, March, April, 2011. APT gallery, Q-Art, Nov,2010.
Publications: ‘REWIND’ Aldgate Press
Ltd, London, 2009,
Please
check out my blog for current work and to see what inspires me… http://joshuaraffellart.blogspot.co.uk/
Current- “Clusterfuck Asthetics” (a manic
depressive panic attack in the face of information overload). Jerry Saltz. I
intend to strip back current affairs by dissecting the hypocrisy of those in
power questioning ideas of taboo and shame. I propose that we no longer know
where we stand in a modern complex society because our natural urges are
suppressed, perverted and altered beyond the realms of natural, into something
confused and confusing (unnatural) working around the ideas of Anthropologist
Mary Douglas ‘Purity and Danger’ I want to remove shame and dirt the things
that marginalize us. I want to explore a world without the constraints of
consumerism, Religion, I intend to make work that breaks down the barrier of
shame to analyse and dissect attachment theory as away to create work that
questions and provokes debate…
References:
Michael Keenan & Keran James Brian Chalkley
http://www.studio1-1.co.uk/ Chelsea, MA Fine Art, Course
Leader
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