Paul McDevitt

DOLPH is an artist-run, visual arts project based in Streatham Hill. At DOLPH we set a brief. The artist’s objective is to frame an exhibition that contextualises the interests and concerns driving their practice. How they do this is up to them. They set their own terms. They are their own curators.

In March, Berlin-based artist Paul McDevitt will respond to the DOLPH brief. One line in particular in DOLPH’s stated aims stuck with him – The decisions that litter the pathway towards completing a piece of work. He says:

“The idea that you have to search for an artwork via a series of false starts and jettisoned trials. I thought maybe something could be made of the confusion and the missteps that occupy so much of the working day.

My starting point for these works was the idea of found painterly gestures. I was interested in looking for a kind of pure, unconscious gesture, in places like the white-washed windows of closed shops, and smudged inkjet signs for missing pets – everyday stuff. Like many other artists I compiled a bunch of photos on my phone and then set about rearranging elements on the computer, building compositions to translate the material into something new in the studio. Anyone who has worked this way will know that the options are infinite, and it doesn’t take long to become lost in a bog of ‘save as’.

This show is an attempt to see where ideas come from, and how they get bent and lost en route. The digital manipulating of all this source material is repetitious and gives me a headache. Faced with countless multiple versions I decided to make repeat patterns with some of the motives. I also included some of the notes and reminders I made along the way, using them as building blocks too.”

The exhibition will launch with a Private View and an Artist’s Talk, in which McDevitt will discuss his response to the brief on Wednesday 15th March 6-9pm.