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Lot Essay
'I think I am interested in utilising the subversion of materials in order to catalyze a sense of dislocation from received ideas of venerability and engender a critical appraisal of the way we encounter things I am as indebted to science fiction and wildlife illustration as I am to mythology and early modernism. For me I see my engagement and reordering of semi-recognizable historical reference points as a kind of detourment. I also work hard to employ contemporary materials and techniques, providing a forum via necessary means that destabilizes any rose-tinted reading of the work and generates a suspicion of inherited notions of tradition and accepted modes of thought' (S. Claydon, quoted in A. Ascari, 'Steven Claydon: Interview', in Mousse, January 2008, p. 9).
Executed in 2008, Steven Claydon's Omar (Emergent) draws reference to De Rerum Natura, an epic poem written by Lucretius to promote Epicureanism to the Romans, as well as the Rubaiyat, an eleventh century Islamic tome by Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was a champion of the Enlightenment who advocated a humanist interpretation of Islam. As such, Omar (Emergent) addresses the contradictory developments of philosophical rationalism in a contemporary context.
Claydon's works combine eclectic points of references, half drawn from science fiction and half from antique statuary. In Omar (Emergent) a multi-coloured ceramic bust poised as an object of veneration is encasedwithin the shelf-like shrine and industrial framework. Oscillating between traditional and high-tech, high and low culture, the disparate elements seemingly cross time and place. Belonging not quite to the past or the future, Claydon's Omar (Emergent) ultimately questions whether the concept of reconstructing objects from the past might be inverted to become a contemporary retelling of an unknown history.
Executed in 2008, Steven Claydon's Omar (Emergent) draws reference to De Rerum Natura, an epic poem written by Lucretius to promote Epicureanism to the Romans, as well as the Rubaiyat, an eleventh century Islamic tome by Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was a champion of the Enlightenment who advocated a humanist interpretation of Islam. As such, Omar (Emergent) addresses the contradictory developments of philosophical rationalism in a contemporary context.
Claydon's works combine eclectic points of references, half drawn from science fiction and half from antique statuary. In Omar (Emergent) a multi-coloured ceramic bust poised as an object of veneration is encasedwithin the shelf-like shrine and industrial framework. Oscillating between traditional and high-tech, high and low culture, the disparate elements seemingly cross time and place. Belonging not quite to the past or the future, Claydon's Omar (Emergent) ultimately questions whether the concept of reconstructing objects from the past might be inverted to become a contemporary retelling of an unknown history.