Zoom: Artist statement
Zoom developed by experimenting with unconventional processes. Whilst the final works are screen-prints on plywood, the images were devised using other techniques during a lengthy period of preliminary investigation.
Each painting presents a singular image as a patterned field that has been distorted by drawing with a photocopier. The image was reduced, enlarged and moved whilst being photocopied. Auto enlarge functions in the photocopier were used to zoom select images at random. The photocopier influenced the work in ways beyond my control. This collaboration enabled a type of mechanical spontaneity to occur.
The primary function of a photocopier is to reproduce. Reproduction by reflection is an absolute element in Zoom. This is how the image grew into a patterned field. It originated as a drawing of a double-curved line and was multiplied kaleidoscopically by cutting and pasting and photocopying. Reproduction by reflection is evident in the diptych format as panels mirror each other in alternative ways. The idea of reflectivity occurs sequentially through each part of the series, making a continuous formal narrative.
The final image, which is the result of a paper miss-feed, indicates a power shift in the collaboration. The reflective sequence is jammed … and so is my photocopier.
David Hawley December 2004