Tim Head: Raw Material
20 March – 9 May 2010
In Head’s screen works and large-scale digital projections we see colours flash and flicker at varying speeds in dazzling, pulsating formations. The result is sumptuous and elusive – but what are we looking at? Michael Bracewell describes the projections as ‘eerie electrostatic fog’: across the screen, individual pixels change colour in unrepeatable sequences. Head has created computer programs that speak directly to projectors and printers, revealing the underlying material elements of the digital medium.
Having worked with a number of different technologies, including photography, Xerox and inkjet printers, Head spent the ten years before the exhibition working directly with computers – while at the same time going back to the basics of drawing.
On drawing he has said:
‘Make a drawing. Not a drawing of something but a drawing that is somehow just a drawing. Is it possible? What would that be?’
More than thirty years after Tim Head’s time as the first artist fellow at Kettle’s Yard, this exhibition provided a welcome chance to catch up with his work. It brought together projections, works for screens, prints and drawings, supplemented by photographic works made by Head during his fellowship at Clare Hall and Kettle’s Yard in 1977-78.
This exhibition was curated by Sotiris Kyriacou and organised by Huddersfield Art Gallery and Kettle’s Yard.
Gallery
