How Jamie Fitzpatrick is Undermining Rationality and the Conventionality of a Gallery Space
In London, a city saturated with galleries, sits VITRINE in Bermondsey Square - a space that seeks to challenge the permanence of the exhibition site. On exhibit are the waxwork sculptures of Jamie Fitzpatrick, which are not merely static figures trapped within the 16-metre vitrine, but come together to perform a scene of complete absurdity in undermining patriarchal depictions of nationhood.
Jamie, a young London-based artist already placed centrally within the ‘emerging’ bracket, saw the space as part of developing his practice. The domineering figures were our backdrop, looming over us as I sat with Jamie and curator Chris Bayley while the artist began to explain his increasingly fluid method of working:
“Wax is this really rigid stuff, you heat it up until its liquid – like when you’ve got a candle and you’ve got that little pool of wax - and there is that point when the wax is really malleable and soft. What I do, is heat up huge pots and wait for it, then get my hands in and throw it all over or use tools. You’ve got this really short window period, where the wax is really malleable and you can do loads, then it becomes rock solid. I’ve got these fancy hot air guns, where you can melt it and play around with it a bit, and bring it back.”
There is a refreshing quality to the way Jamie works, and his clear excitement at the path of progression his practice is embarking on is infectious. His pieces are bold and do not shy away from causing a stir in the public square. Jamie described the influences behind his work, as responding to the idea of social authority:
“Having lived in Scotland for about ten years, I moved back down to London to study at the RCA. When I came back, one of things that hit me was the amount of architectural choices that had been made in the building of the city. There were so many of these structures that were placed, particularly in the centre of London, as totems of authority.
“Society uses them in this very socially, controlling way; these heroes, these lords and these gentry that literally stand above you. The way I see it was they were originally installed as this primitive CCTV, you’ve got a King that will stand over and watch you from everywhere, a constant reminder of your place within the social strata.
“Obviously as the world has moved on we have become less and less interested in these things, we don’t notice them as much, but they still serve this same purpose and still do this same thing. It is much more subtle, almost a little bit more sinister, something we have grown accustom to and just live with, that we don’t really think about but we are engaged with in exactly the same way.”
It is this darker underbelly of social authority, which continues to permeate into our contemporary landscapes that Jamie attributes as central to his comical figures:
“I am interested in the figurative but I am not interested in the body, I am not making sculptures that have any interest in the human form. They are interested in the allegorical and what it means to stand in front of something. The power exchange between you and this object, and I suppose that is always the fundamental thing I go back to.
“I am interested in the way in which if you undermine all those very fixed, formal rhetorical choices that we are use to, by the fact it is no longer this pristine surface but this totally messed up surface, it is making it look like something comical. These ones have been toned down for the nature of this exhibition, but a lot of them are grotesque. My practice is about undermining, it is always about undermining.
“With this show, because the space is so problematic - a narrow, thin, long space that you can’t go into, you’re removed from the works and there’s this literal barrier, as you can’t get in and engage with it. The more we were planning the show, I began to see it a bit like a theatre stage with a physical barrier between you and the works in the same way there is between a stage and auditorium.”
Jamie’s attempt to disrupt the sanctity of the sited exhibition in his work is in line with the new model for galleries Vitrine seeks to create. The show’s curator Chris Bayley saw immediate potential in Jamie’s work and how it would make use of the intriguing space:
“Due to the limitations of the space, when I invited Jamie to do this show I thought it would be really interesting to see his work in such a tight space, especially given the fact his work is so large scale. A major part of the exhibition was finding a balance between working with his practice and seeing how his pieces would work scaled down.
“From us starting to talk about potential shows, to studio visits then developing the exhibition, I’ve always said this is a platform for him to explore. It doesn’t matter if it goes right and it doesn’t matter if it goes wrong. The exciting thing about this space is that it does almost becomes a residency for the artist, because you’ve got to really think about how your practice is going to sit in there, I think the works lend themselves to the space really well.”
The platform has allowed Jamie to continue to fine-tune his work and explore his passion for writing. The three part play, written by Jamie that is hung behind the sculptures, becomes an anchor for the exhibition and something that he hopes to intertwine further into his craft:
“Here, it has been successful. My writing has always been something quite private, I’ve never really used it in my work before. I saw it as, to some degree, separate to my art, it was not quite the same thing - it was just something I did and I enjoyed doing by myself. Then there was this glint of opportunity, where I could see how it could get inserted.
“Right up until the very end I was still quite nervous as to whether it was something that was needed, I’m still finding that barrier and playing about with the idea of how much narrative these things need. If you give them too much narrative, they become just illustrative. There seems to be a finely treaded line that I haven’t got the gist of yet, it will take a few times to work it out and there will probably be times where I have totally overstepped the mark or times where I’ve not given enough. It feels very much part of a process rather than a show.”
The ethos of Vitrine is grounded in allowing the artists they represent to grow and foster their processes, with the exhibition space playing a major part in encouraging experimentation. Jamie’s sculptures and the written play combine to give the exhibition a strong performative element, something that Chris explained is central to the work:
“I think they both complement one another. These figures are completely absurd, they are completely dumb and really grotesque, which is emphasised through the text as well.
“There are always rules within the theatre, like an actor should never have their back to the audience or they should be speaking directly to the audience, which are almost completely contradicted within this show. One of the characters is hugely at the forefront of the writing, yet doesn’t speak at all despite being sat in the middle of two very domineering sculptures, just banging his head against the windowpane. This is interesting because he is the hierarchy, the apex of the triangulation and there remains no dialogue from him.”
With the gallery being enclosed in a leafy London suburb, the public nature of the work was a concern for Jamie, but also feed into his practice:
“The ideas behind it are fairly obvious, it’s not a cryptic piece. I don’t want to just sit and illustrate it as I don’t think it needs that. As well as the physical restraints of this space, the fact that it is constantly in the public eye means it’s not a case of going into a gallery with the unwritten transaction that you go in and anything can happen. A gallery is a place of no censorship. This isn’t quite the same, as people are not willingly entering into the space to see my work.
“The very public context of this work obviously means there is an element where you have got to play within the rules. I didn’t want to totally sanitise it, just because of what it was, I felt like the work wouldn’t justify itself if it did, so there was more of this element of ‘how far can you go?’
“You want to provoke people into thinking about the work, the works are very seductive. People to want talk about it and want to engage with it - which I think is a real benefit of the works. People also love being righteous about things, if they don’t enjoy it, people enjoy not enjoying it. Everyone’s a winner, take what you want from it.”
This ambitious site-specific installation questions what is means to stand in front of a piece of art and the inherent limitations of the space are adopted to Jamie’s advantage. Jamie is an artist on a journey. With the Vitrine becoming a platform to hone his ideas and test the boundaries of the medium, his desire to undermine this idea of a ‘glorified ideal of authority’ continues to unfold.
(loudly) chomp chomp chomp by Jamie Fitzpatrick is viewable 24/7 at the Vitrine site in Bermondsey Square. VITRINE, London, 15 Bermondsey Square, London, SE1 3UN 3 February 2016 - 9 April 2016
Jessica Rayner
