Christian Newby, Argyle, 2019, tufted wool and carpet gripper, 280cm x 190cm. Courtesy of the artist and Patricia Fleming, Glasgow.
The drum, the chime, the scrape, the splash, the jerk
26 Mar - 29 May 2021
Patricia Fleming Gallery (Nicholson St)
This Spring Patricia Fleming Gallery presents 'The drum, the chime, the scrape, the splash, the jerk', the gallery’s first solo presentation with London-based artist Christian Newby. The exhibition includes a new large scale work as well as work produced whilst on residency at the Academy of Visual Arts, HKBU, Hong Kong in Autumn 2019.
Newby incorporates techniques from industrial textile production into a drawing practice that aims to subvert the assumptions pertaining to value and skill within fine and applied arts practice, as well as challenge the design principles and craft rhetoric commonly associated with carpet tufting.
The works on display are made using a handheld industrial carpet-tufting gun and created through a process of improvised drawing. He is currently looking at the carpet-tufting gun as a case study in how the roles of artist, artisan and fabricator are determined by terminal belief systems in productivity and commodification. His unique technique of ‘drawing with carpet’ redirects the manufacturing function of the gun and instead explores its capacities as a mark-making tool, while observing it as a fundamental equivalent to the pencil, spray can, paintbrush and tattoo needle. His works carry an awareness of the anonymity of globalized commercial production and mass labour, in direct contrast with the skilful mastery equated with artisanal handicraft.