“As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man”.

Ernst Fischer

This body of work represents an attempt at the selective articulation of the surfaces of aluminum structures through the use of paint and resin. It is made through a process governed by specific rules. A thin transparent monochrome is spread across the surface of the aluminium and then stripped off, using a variety of blades and instruments drawn across the surface. This procedure is then repeated, slowly building up an accumulation of residues.

The outcome is determined largely by the physical characteristics of the support; the imperfections of the metal surface, the burr of its edge; or shifts in the consistency of the paint/resin mix, or the build up along the edge of the blade as it strips the surface bare. Each tiny imperfection is amplified by the process of stripping, leaving a ridge of denser colour to register its presence, a ‘register of failure’ if you will. The finished piece is an accumulation of what the artist has learnt about that particular piece of metal through successive applications and subtractions.

Paradoxically, in adopting this quasi-mechanised approach – free of emotion, free of explicit content – a quintessentially human quality emerges. When compared with the perfection of machine production, the limitations and failures of the human hand are writ large. Everything in the painted surface that deviates from a strict monochrome is predicated upon error, human or material. As such this artistic practice represents a ‘glorification of error’.

“I conceive of the support as a site with a particular history, a history that is determined through the performance of a set of procedures. I create surfaces that record, or manifest the histories of their own making. My primary concern is with the creative act rather than resultant object. The painted surface is a form of residue, the abandoned relic of a performance or ritual. For the spectator, the process of apprehension is consequently analogous to a kind of archaeology, uncovering the processes of making.”

Eric Butcher