Sean Branagan // 'Construct in the Mind of a Sceptic', 2010 // Perspex sheeting, acrylic paint, LCD screen (moving image) 60cms x 70cms // courtesy the artist and Gooden Gallery
September 3, 2010 until October 17, 2010 // Golden Gallery // open Thursday to Sunday 12h - 18h // London, UK
Sean Branagan's work has a hint of the impossible but nearly graspable about it. He doesn't describe the world we know - i.e. he doesn't focus on the scaffolding, in which we communally invest, through language and social order to run our lives - an approach that delivers the comforting satisfaction of affirmation and recognition. Instead he attempts to breach 'The Real' [See Jacques Lacan: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis.] - something that differentiates itself from what could be called 'artificial' to be more total, but which is also certainly discernible from the imaginary and fanciful.
As a vehicle for 'time', 'light' and 'movement' (elements which are as valid to his practice as more conventional ones of painting such as line, form and colour) the role of the projector has been variously considered in past pieces. For example, it was built inside the work in the LIGHT FORMS series, it was suspended closely overhead on clamps in works like 'Peep Show' and 'Where the Sun is Silent' (pieces recently seen in the group show PHYSICOLOGY at this gallery).
In those pieces light was always applied to the surface (via the projector).This exhibition sees the adoption of LCD screens, allowing light and movement to emanate from within the work. However, light is also applied externally onto the work; these paintings are lit from the front, and are to be seen in the full light of the gallery space, as in any other painting show.
'The ribbon'
Branagan describes the urge in his studio to hold one end of a ribbon and throw the other end outwards, through and into the work. This feels less about creating a navigable bridge between the tangible and intangible (because this assumes a difference, or a journey, that takes you from one thing, to another, different thing - the conceptual world of the painting and his own reality) it is more about an orchestration of seeing and feeling the work homogenously, about embracing the idea that perhaps there is no difference, perhaps there is only one thing - 'The Real'.
In 'Constructs in the Mind of a Sceptic', lines of drawing are conventionally applied onto the Perspex, as a painter might apply them to his canvas, but then they are also (unconventionally) applied at the filming stage as part of the figure's environment. As the figure moves, some of the lines are attached to her body and move to her will. We are presented with drawing that was made before filming took place; drawing made during the filming, by the figure as she moved/moves; drawing on the surface of the Perspex and finally drawing on the walls - created by the shadows that result from the surface, in places, being transparent.
"It is the task of radical thought, since the world is given to us in unintelligibility, to make it more unintelligible, more enigmatic, more fabulous." Jean Baudrillard.
Born in Old Trafford, England, Branagan studied for his BA at BIAD (Birmingham City University). He has received the Salford City Arts Bursary, 1st Prize; a studio practice grant from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, New York and an 'Art for Architecture' grant from the Royal Society of Arts. Solo shows include: Un-Still Life, 2009 at the Kusseneers Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium; The Solo Project, 2009 & 2010 Basel, Switzerland; Painting with People II, 2008 at STUDIO ONE, the GRV, Edinburgh, Scotland; LIGHT FORMS, 2007 at VINEspace London. Group shows include: Shibboleth, the Cafe Gallery Projects London; Painting Unlimited at APT Gallery London. In 2009 he exhibited in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, as part of ROMA, the Road to Contemporary Art. Sean Branagan lives and works in London.
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