Daniel Tucker

Artist Catalogue

Virtual Exhibition

From What Remains

This body of work is one of ecological concern – specifically the relationships between people, industry, and the environment. It is a delicate critique of the indelicate Anthropocene through the systems and structures that facilitate and mediate the aforementioned relationships. This approach brings into focus particular objects of semiotic value – but often not considered as ‘symbols’. Rather the objects that I work with are components of systems and processes that gain meaning through context, interaction, and the material in which they are rendered. These objects are often mundane remnants of systems that reveal the tensions between strength and fragility. This critique of industrial scale agriculture and irrigation in the Overberg region is the heuristic tool through which I engage with the aforementioned conceptual concerns.

This body of work looks at the way in which land is controlled, reformed, curated and injured. Rather than to depict it literally, this exhibition is a subtle inference of ‘the industrial agricultural landscape’. These sculpted components explore the possibilities of their rendered materials and their own qualities – despite being naturalistically rendered there is an abstraction and intrigue to the objects. The time taken on each stands in contrast to the scale of mass production of some of the coupled found objects. How they interact and are curated is crucial to the project. What is the scale of the body in relation to the scale of industry in relation to the scale of land? What are the potentials for repair? The wooden carvings have a corporeal implication the piping referencing collapsed bodily systems – failed tubes that are critical to sustaining life, from arteries to intestines.

Visual interaction is the primary access to conceptual discourse in this body of work.  The space that my work inhabits should evoke a feeling. Through the treatment and manipulation of form and material I work toward creating a sense of loss. For me sculptural objects or immersive installations hold the greatest potential for this by cohabiting the space of the viewer in three dimensions as they navigate through the exhibition. The space is critical to my work – the exhibition space is part of the work and the work part of the space. It is important, to my practice, to create an interest and engagement with the art objects and from there the subject matter, particularly considering the compassion fatigue that exists in relation to the environmental concerns that I address.

I am fascinated by the meaning that arises from the interactions between objects and also between the objects and the viewer. The objects that I sculpt are particularly corporeal – they imply the body of the viewer in the way in which they are distressed and contorted. This bodiliness along with the material subversion has the potential to access a discomfort - the uncanny.