Strategies versus Tactics
As a way of introducing the various media and methods employed in my art practice and research, this selection of foundational works are assembled to provide a context for my current art practice and research. The Tactical Life Model is a sensibility and approach to art making, exploring what a body does, and how it generates a complex multitude of interpretations, representations, and meanings. The Tactical Life Model uses the life class as a structure of (mass) production to fracture the conceit of artistic authorship, authenticity, and originality residing in a single perspective and experience.
Projects include: The Model Curator (2004) in which the curator becomes the life model to produce work for an exhibition; Life Class: Time Square, New York (2006) employing street vendors to configure a private life class in public space; and Study of Nude in Bath (2007–9), which fictionalises an art historical event in a domestic flat in Glasgow. These works problematise: firstly, the terms of engagement between the artist and model, secondly, the threshold between public and private space of the life class, and lastly, the equivalences of the life drawing and performance documentation.
Recent papers given include: Tate Modern Current Research into East Asian Visual Culture Conference 2012; University of Reading Contesting British Chinese Culture 2011; and Sheffield Hallam, University Transmission: Hospitality Conference 2010.
