PETER MARIS
#14 Comment & #6 A cautionary tale
COMMENT
We have become very easily accustomed to seeing and accepting barcodes in many aspects of our daily lives. We take them for granted as indicators of price, value, identity and uniqueness.
Like most people, I cannot read barcodes but I actually enjoy their visual appearance and mystery in the same way that, despite not understanding hieroglyphics and cuneiform, I enjoy the pattern they make – especially carved in stone.
Stone though is also the very fabric of the Earth itself. Despite its great age, the planet is constantly disrespected and up for sale as an over-exploited and enslaved commodity. The carved barcode in this sculpture, cut like a branding right across and into the surface of the stone, loudly proclaims that everything, including the land, has a materialistic value imposed upon it, - for itself, for a specific location and, more often than not, for the resources that it contains and which, as is the case in several global locations, can give rise to very contentious, divisive and violent issues.
In this sculpture, as the carved lines ‘fade out’ towards the top left of the work, another reminder of commercial interests is made with an allusion to a cityscape crowded with tall and slender buildings, posing as landmark indicators of high status, wealth and power.
This particular barcode, carved here to make comment upon all those materialistic issues, takes its format from a sales barcode printed in an old copy of The Financial Times whose advertising strap line once read as ‘No FT, no comment’.
Peter Maris
August 2022
A CAUTIONARY TALE
Examples of ancient architectural relief-carvings and decorations are often presented in museum displays as random shapes and with broken outlines and profiles.
In the process of removal and isolation from their original contexts the fragmented remains give a ‘snapshot’ view which can easily become altered, misconstrued and subverted within a new and different setting.
This sculpture, ‘A Cautionary Tale’, deliberately makes play with those ideas and visual formats to suggest an association with antiquity and ancient mythologies in attempting to address a very contemporary issue. By re-appropriating the specific imagery, design and meaning of a familiar British Highway Code sign, the sculpture refers to a growing divide in UK society regarding contentious ‘sporting’ activities such as hunting and also questions our views as to whether this is actually right and appropriate for the 21st century or whether it is an anachronistic pastime and a misuse of our worldly responsibilities.
Peter Maris
August 2022
Artist Statement
I have been working with stone since 1987, gaining experience first in a commercial and industrial environment and then later, for 10 years, as a stonecarver engaged with prestigious heritage restoration work at York Minster.
However, the background to my work is rooted in Fine-Art having studied at St Martin’s School of Art for a BA Hons 1977-80 and then later for an MA at Leeds Metropolitan University 1998–2000. My practice has therefore developed, and been enhanced by, the combination of my extensive experience in the stone industry and by my art school training. Consequently, I enjoy a wide variety of work including fine-art stone-carving, public art, letter-cutting, designing and making bespoke memorials and working on specific individual commissions.
I have always been inspired by the actual creative process itself and by the transformations that are made along the way regarding the physical appearance of the material, the structure of the concept, and by the re-interpretation and re-appropriation of images and/or contexts in order to present new meanings or questions. These key background elements have always provided a strong direction to my approach to practice and continue to inform my fine-art thinking and preparations for current sculptural proposals.
My most notable recent work has been as a lettercutter for the Dry Stone Wall Maze project in Dalby Forest as also as an Artist in Residence at Dalby where I chose to direct my commission as a series of collaborations with a photographer, a stained-glass artist, a writer and a musician.
For other images of my work please visit my Facebook pages:- @cartshedstudioartsprojects and also @Stelaiartworks
Peter Maris
August 2022