Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Bath Spa University
Inflate: included in Uncommon Ground
Kidd’s work explores the limits of painting - literally "what can you do with paint?" - producing machines or systems that paint and installations that result from these. Her research aims to unlock “painting” from a static encounter with its audience. Central to the work is the exploration of paint as a viscous, moving material. For example Rough In (2010) and Line (2009) where, in performances witnessed byK the audience, paint was pumped around installed systems of plumbing or, in the case of the ‘Inflate’ series, a canvas is treated as a skin and the paint pumped in behind and through it and, by virtue of its weight, forces the skin of the painting forward like a belly.
In the earlier painting machines (1997-2000), repeatedly dipped canvasses accrued successive layers of paint over their surface as the reservoir of paint was used up. There is a point in many works where the event finishes: the reservoir is exhausted, the skin can hold no more paint, the plumbing system clogs up. In exhibitions at Chelsea Space, London (2008); Camden Arts Centre (2009); Primo Alonso, London (2009); Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury (Arts Council Funded) (2010); Toomey Tourell, San Francisco (2012); and PG Gallery, Istanbul (2012), Kidd produced works that placed the viewer directly in the space of the active installation/production.
For In with the New at Camden Arts Centre; Mob Remedies at Primo Alonso, London; and Interior Life at the Herbert Read Gallery (Arts Council Funded) Kidd developed a number of active works that placed the viewer directly in the site of a paintings production. Even when the machines seize up or the paintings stop – at the Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy Galleries and Uncommon Ground, Meinblau Gallery, Berlin - speculation and anticipation still remain critical.
