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David Cheeseman primarily works with sculpture, installation and photography, and his practice often has an interdisciplinary focus. His initial point of departure is dialogical; a staged conversation between two frames of reference, a stepping stone in the process of analyzing and constructing a speculative visual proposition.
The work in Slime Mould Logic is informed by specific links and analogies. Cheeseman pays homage to Marcel Duchamp’s Comb and Three Standard Stoppages while also interpolating the mathematical theory and aperiodic tiling of Roger Penrose. In linking Penrose, the eminent mathematical physicist and his discovery of a remarkable family of geometric forms (Penrose tiles), with Duchamp’s early conceptual works, Cheeseman suggests a philosophical underpinning that considers process rather than substance to be the fundamental constituent of the world.
I work predominately with ‘stuff.’ Physical materiality is more important to me than image and the work emerges as a playful response to my fascination with process, and the methodologies and philosophies of science and magic.
The eponymous piece Slime Mould Logic, articulates Cheeseman’s interest in different morphologies; the arboreal structure of the tree (cut down in the building of his studio), the crystalline forms of the two different kinds of glass, and the presence of electromagnetic function with the magnets and magnetic putty – “all in flux, materiality without a fixed condition.”
Slime mould is an organism constantly in flux. Slime moulds can live freely as single cells but aggregate together to form multicellular reproductive ‘slime’ structures. Studies have tracked how the organisms are able to navigate towards foods or hosts in an incredibly resourceful way, almost as if they have an emergent intelligence. Cheeseman remarks, “Slime mould is astonishing – as an ‘actant’ it poses questions around the development of our own intelligence and consciousness. I also think it can act as an analogy or metaphor for the way culture operates more generally.”
During his career David Cheeseman has completed public commissions and was the artist in residence at Gloucester Cathedral. In 1991 he was awarded the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Award and in 2001 he participated at the touring exhibition Multiplication organized by the British Council. Other notable exhibitions include Dumfounded at Battersea Arts Centre (1999), Art Futures at the Royal Festival Hall (2000) and On the Other Hand at Gloucester Cathedral (2006). David Cheeseman was awarded the Gulbenkian Rome Scholarship in Sculpture and The Henry Moore Fellow in Sculpture at Coventry University.
Cheesman has taught extensively in the UK and abroad including positions at Wimbledon School of Art and The Royal Academy Schools and is currently Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Birmingham City University.
Last year he completed a residency at The Lydney Park Estate in association with Matts Gallery London and also presented a Fig.2 at the ICA in collaboration with Ole Hagan and astrophysicist Roberto Trotta.
Saturday 28 May
a special event linked to
DAVID CHEESEMAN
Slime Mould Logic
Two Talks and a Walk
Start: 2.30pm DOMOBAAL
3 John St, London WC1N 2ES
Maud Cotter and David Cheeseman in conversation at Cotter’s exhibitionMattter of Fact
WALK: 3.45 – 5pm a walk between DOMOBAAL and TINTYPE through the hinterlands of Islington (about 1.5 mile) with an annotated map kindly provided by International Lawns
(artists Andrew Curtis & Niall Monro)
5 – 6pm David Cheeseman and Maud Cotter in conversation at Cheesman’s exhibition Slime Mould Logic at Tintype
107 Essex Road, London, N1 2SL