British Racing Green

Our experience of a place is informed by a physical relationship to that place. We move bodily throughout the space interpreting it through touch, smell, sight, sound. We also experience the place mentally; we have a concept of the place through either text, oral communications or imagery such as photography, video, illustrations etc…

My work explores how a place is experienced both physically and mentally, how we respond to it through bodily movement and concept. I seek to uncover traces of a hidden language, a history, which is beyond the familiar everyday readings of the site. Translating the findings creates an index through which the narrative can be brought into an encounter with the present experience of the site to question our perception of place.

The work is site-specific installation drawing that employs the temporality of the artist's time in the space. My role as artist requires a labour intensive process of interaction with the site through the action of charcoal rubbings, photography, structural drawing, measurement taking, etc… This is fundamental in exposing traces otherwise unseen. The physical structure directs the artist's interaction with the site, by applying one structure onto another, a surface area is selected to be investigated further. This leads to an installation drawing in the site.

In my work it is the drawing that is a language, a medium, through which the hidden or unnoticed experience of the place can be communicated. The structure of the site has a language to which the drawing refers references and translates. Though the language of the drawing is not necessarily the same as that of the site, but intends to open a dialogue between the viewer/ spectator and the site.

www.matthewskelley.co.uk

www.matthewskelley.co.uk