Matching modern art’s supply and demand
by Vincent Ciccarello
It is the kind of dilemma most artists would relish – an order from a United States art gallery for 150 large-scale works.
But for Steven Carson, Studio Head (Sculpture and Installation) at UniSA’s South Australian School of Art, the request presented more than a small challenge.
"I calculated it would take me around 25 years to fill the order," he said.
Unfortunately for Carson, there’s no cutting corners – broad brush strokes, spray guns or rollers just won’t do. Instead, hours of meticulous and painstaking work - hand-painting thousands of matchsticks with up to seven coats of acrylic paint and then gluing them side-by-side - are required for just one of Carson’s artworks.
"My matchstick paintings explore non-traditional approaches to painting and drawing," he said.
"The individually hand-painted matchsticks jointly assert a connection to and disconnection from traditional painting materials and processes.
"Typically my work is labour intensive and there’s a reference to the value of labour itself but there’s also a reference to the distinctions between values that distinguish a range of creative activities."
The results are stunning series of colourful abstract paintings of geometric patterns that are winning acclaim here and abroad.
Carson took out the prestigious Whyalla Art Prize for 2007 with I never learned to paint, a two-metre by two-metre painting comprising 30,000 matchsticks that took three months to make. The Prize’s winning entry forms a part of the Whyalla Art Gallery’s permanent collection and its creator took home $25,000.
"I haven’t really thought what I’ll do with the money. It’s a very generous amount, and obviously it was awarded to me for my work, so I think it will definitely be returned to my work in some way."
Carson said the title of the work refers to "a tongue-in-cheek anxiety and ambivalence on my part about having never learnt to paint, yet it is this very proposition that establishes the conceptual imperative and technical mechanism with which I work".
"It is my intention that the perception of the work changes as viewers approach the work – it may appear at first like a painting, then perhaps it might look like an embroidery, or a heavily pixelated digital print, yet when the viewer gets close to the work its method of construction and materiality and become more evident."
Evident now, also, to the manager of that US art gallery - his order remains necessarily unfilled.