Image: James Dodd, Snow Cone (detail), 2018. Photograph courtesy the artist
Creativity and collaboration are at the heart of innovation. Since 2018 UniSA Business has partnered with Guildhouse to present works by contemporary South Australian visual artists to encourage reflection and inspire new ideas.
Transformer
James Dodd
19 October 2020 – 5 March 2021
Artist Statement
‘This exhibition Transformer is part of the Painting Mill project, and has been presented in a number of forms since 2015. It has grown out of my interest in simple machines and how they might be considered within a visual art context. I am particularly keen to imply a sense of things that are built in backyards and sheds, as adapted from pre-existing things that we know; kind of like hacking or re-purposing. In this case I have taken a number of simple cordless drills and built them into a machine that can be used for making paintings. My favourite way of describing this is as a ‘mutant power tool’. The machine is controlled via a joystick, implying a sense of video gaming. In the case of this exhibition we see only the paintings that have been developed via the use of the device. I am curious as to the kinds of responses these works invoke.
The Painting Mill proposes a machine that might be equally interesting as an object, performative process and tool for making artworks.’