Republished Tuesday February 13, 2007

An Interview with and ART by
Paul Wrigley
Images © Paul Wrigley 2003
Courtesy the artist and Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney. www.gbk.com.au
Interview with the Artist © Retort Magazine 2003

Tuesday 13-Feb-2007 11:16

RETORT MAGAZINE ISSN 1445-7164

Click Images to Enlarge

Interview with Paul Wrigley
by Niko Vuletic

In a pill, how long have you been practising, where, and most importantly, why?

I've been practicing for around 12 years - mainly in Brisbane, with a short stint in London in 2000. Why paint? Well, it seems to me the most worthwhile thing that I can do with my life. It's a bit of an obsession, and has been to my detriment at times, but I wouldn't do anything else.

Those familiar with your work know you have dabbled with various 'styles' or 'genres'. Do think your current work reflects your ideas any differently than your previous bodies of work?

There's much more of a synthesis of ideas in the latest work. A lot of the issues I'd been trying to deal with by jumping from minimal sculpture to installation to photography to representational painting to conceptual art have blended. My focus now shifts conceptually without changing aesthetically, because all of these facets are now integrated in the current mode of production.

One of the main problems that nearly stopped me from making art altogether was the commodity market. It really hit me while I was in London that there was just about no escaping the uptake into capitalism - all of those things they told me at college about the avant-garde suddenly seemed like bunkum - it was all on the market - whether a painting or a tin of shit. Aesthetics changed for me then. I just couldn't ignore the immanent materialism any more and this became a key factor in the movement toward synthesis.

I still shift, but it's less obvious to the casual observer because it's happening backstage.

I guess that there is a little more cynicism, but also more clarity and honesty. Perhaps.

Who or what do you feel influences the thoughts and ideas that inspire your work?

I really just try to keep my eyes open. I surf the net, I watch TV. I read a bit - Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Slavoj Zizek. Some modernist literature. I look at some art - I like Paul Pfeiffer, Glenn Brown, Gerhard Richter, Richard Patterson, Uta Barth, to name a few.

The television news is quite influential - as are the bare-faced lies of our politicians and leaders in the name of money and power.

You indicated your concern about issues such as commodification, and materialism. I feel you address these issues in your work, particularly in your choice of subject. Do you feel that other spectators are also seeing this?

One thing I've come to appreciate is the fact that you can't communicate the same thing to everyone at the same time. People will see what they will see, but I'd hope that my work acts as a provocation at least.

The issue of commodification is a problem for many creative people. I personally see a great divide between the production of art that broaches these issues, and art that is purely aesthetic, with no inherent political or ideological values. Do you think if artists are not concerned with these issues that it faces being completely co-opted by the capitalist market economy?

Well, it is a difficult area. I for one like nothing more than getting lost in an artwork and forgetting all of the crap that we deal with on a daily basis, but it seems that if these issues aren't dealt with on some level - not necessarily as a didactic political stance, but more so as an inherent reality of the situation - that you end up with something that's a little facile.

I can't ignore the economy immanent to these instantiations, but at the same time it's not like these things are done only for money - ninety-nine percent of the artists I know could be making a lot more of that if they got a real job, myself included.

Avant-gardism is an interesting thing - you look at artists like Banksy, whose work is absolutely un-saleable and takes a stance outside of the market - and I don't want to sound too cynical here - but how much does his book cost again? We all have to eat, and there is a converse naivety to ignoring the market.

Or do you think maybe it already has, and artists such as yourself are in a minority?

Complicity is a game that a lot of artists play, with varying degrees of awareness. I really don't think it's a case of "you'll pay me how much to make another painting/video installation/sculpture?," but it is a part of the cultural engine. I'm not saying culture wouldn't exist without it - just that it would be a very different beast.

Culture completely co-opted by the market economy? Definitely not. More so a provocation to cultural production, for many reasons.

If the Australian National Gallery approached you to acquire a painting from your current series of work, which would you like them to choose?

Ah, sweet fantasy... "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa."

Paul Wrigley
Images © Paul Wrigley 2003
Courtesy the artist and Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney. www.gbk.com.au
Interview with the Artist © Retort Magazine 2003