Lie, Figure / Defrock Series [Conceptual Art]

Originally, Defrock was a series of sculptures I made from rubbish materials - paper cups, coffee filters, pie tins, old computer parts, unused carpet - called Lie, Figure 1, 2, 3 and 4. The fabric draped over the rubbish acted as a figurative and literal veil, hiding the mundane, everyday materials beneath a facade of the kind of classical art that perpetuates mysticism. The duality of the works to act as a rhetorical joke.


Lie Figure No. 1

Three days later an opportunity to show the sculptures in an exhibition arose and I took it. The exhibition, organised by eleven other artists, the events manager of the venue and myself, was held in a local pool hall. The exhibition opened to the dismay of the regular customers who approached the works with an attitude of annoyance rather than interest, although not too little interest for a patron to uncover one of the draped figures. The deceit of suggestion was discovered. The joke was given a punch-line.

In this punch-line I found the power of ‘the reveal.’ The act that draws into sharper focus our patterns of processing sensory information through the filters of cultural ideology and conditioning.

It was in this effort of deceit that I found a discourse that I followed with the creation of the Defrock video series; a discussion of the factors that condition perception.


Seated Figure (from the series Defrock)