Three prints inspired by Fluxus as part of the Reform Exhibition, Leicester Print Workshop November 2019.

THE FLUXUS REFORM EXHIBITION AND MY CONTRIBUTION.

FLUXUS The pieces challenge our perceptions of what is funny/possible, true or manufactured. The sublime and the ridiculous vie for our attention in a political landscape where the two are often indistinguishable.

Note to the Curators (who did an amazing job, with sincere thanks).

It is hoped that they contain sufficient clues as to the intention and that they enable the viewer to be enlightened, confused, entertained and bemused in keeping with the model shown below. This text can be displayed alongside the works, but there is no requirement, expectation or indeed need to be expressed by the maker, thus leaving the decision to the curator and the wall’s capacity to accommodate more display material.

Perhaps all three images should be looked at from three viewpoints.

The first is a purely visual one. I tried to make them work on some sort of aesthetic level. They have the feeling of older prints, when printing manually on boxes and games and when trichromatic screenprinting would have been the norm. The 50s and in some parts of the world right up to the 80s and perhaps even to today. My inspiration was the images for my childhood, and primarily these beautiful playing cards and collecting cards made by a chocolate manufacturer in Greece.  On closer inspection, the CYMK printing and the dots when slightly misregistered are great fun.  Secondly, all three images are entertaining and have amusing titles, of sorts. They are throw-away in appearance or have the feeling of not taking themselves too seriously. The titles New Life and Big Game perhaps more so than the more esoteric  Remember? - 83 Alexandrou Raptopoulou street, where I grew up. I will say more about the latter later. Finally, the images all have serious undertones. Reading the text in the New Life box and in the Big Game will give some clues as to the fact that these are not purely entertaining words. On closer inspection, some of the messages are very difficult concepts of self-exploration and acceptance.  The added QR codes, of course, will clinch the deal, so to speak. Each one takes us to a difficult place. 

Work 1: New Life (Box net and constructed version of the box), Screen-printed: The print is a dark/humorous look at the way identity is shaped by factors beyond our control. The box claims that a new life free of problems is a possibility. The piece has a political undertone and a more serious one. Scanning the bar code takes us to a site about changing identity, a poignant fact which reveals the plight of many victims: If you're the victim of spousal abuse or are testifying in a criminal trial, law enforcement agencies have the ability to help you assume a new identity. To learn how to change your name and register for a new social security number, read on, and help yourself make a fresh start.

Work 2: Big Game. Screen-printed. A confused grown-up Snakes and Ladders. A game based on using a dice  to move pieces around a phrenology chart.  The options create wins or loses. It is loosely based on Eric Berne’s work as used in Born to Win: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments by Dorothy Jongeward and Muriel James. The QR code takes us to the charity Mind.

I created a version 2 as so many people loved it and it needed some glitches ironing out.  The second version had another couple of hard-hitting self-universal reflections. 

Work 3: Remember (83 Alexandrou Raptopoulou Street). Mixed Media print.

A Mnemonic aid; three ways to remember; things, projections, emotions. The various ways of recalling a place and time. Scanning the QR code takes us to the donate page of a Dementia charity.

The print in the making at Leicester Print Workshop.

Trichromatic colour separation of the image.

A digital version of the image.

The three heads each have a detailed map or aerial view of my childhood home and the immediate neighbourhood. The first black and white one identifies (remembers) 5 'things'. The second one, in black and yellow, identifies five 'reactions' to the same five 'things' or incidents/happenings/situations.

The third one identifies the emotions that I associate with the same 'things'. Thus the image spans the full range of reactions and memories and ends with the big things in full colour. I have created a reverse image of cognitive loss.  One where the lesser things are forgotten and the important emotions (love being the greatest, to quote St Paul) remain. This is not celebrating memory loss, it is simply commenting on the inevitability fo cognitive decline, but celebrates our capacity as transcendent beings to retain what matters. It is not a rose-tinted spectacle view of dementia, but it is an unashamed acknowledgement of human beings worth even as we reach the end and enter a place of no return.