Sean Edwards

Sean Edwards begins with a rule, a sequence or pattern. His references detect pure ideas; clean, graphic forms and processes of scientific precision that often become exhausted by the rhythms of reproduction. Ready-made items are incorporated into objects and installations, coupling fragments of mass-production with elements that are re-made or hand-crafted so that the use value of the object becomes emptied out and we are confronted with the notion of an original and the unique quality of each edition.

Bold, candy-stripe designs for carrier bags are faded on low-grade, filmy polythene; monographic logotypes for cardboard boxes vary within a repeat pattern, botched by printing. Edwards’s own objects often attempt a process that mirrors this challenge of replication or invents an aesthetic system for working within the perimeters of the rule. So by an elaborate process of sanding and photocopying an exact facsimile of a pencil replaces the object that has been sanded away (Photocopied Staedtler Noris HB Pencil 2003) or splinters, in a piece of plywood that must be neatly creased by removing all but one of the ply, are carefully filled and coloured by pencil crayon (Lazy Leaning Plywood 2005).

For this exhibition Edwards has visited Sheffield during the World Snooker Championship to record the process of assembling, leveling and clothing the tables at the Crucible Theatre where the tournament is held each year. This video piece will be relayed via a sequence of DVD’s operated by the gallery staff and the image from the monitor will be doubled in a wall that the artist has painted with white gloss. Other works will follow this process of repetition; an apron with an area of printed and accidental pattern (reproduced for the exhibition invite), a series of drawings tracing the negative space in photographs of glamour models from page 3 of The Sun, overlaying shapes by month or by girl. Edwards will adapt the space to respond to his work and the qualities of his work inherent in the visual content of the space itself. Colour from the upper-part of the walls will drop down to the centre boards on one side of the space and against another, unpainted boards will lean with their tops planed level to form a shelf. The works in this exhibition have been commissioned by S1 Artspace. S1 thanks World Snooker and The Crucible Theatre Sheffield for their generous support with this project.