Probably my least favorite aspect of working with galleries and public institutions is the standard request for an ‘artists statement’, for many reasons. Not least because it assumes I have ‘something that I want to say’ and that my work is somehow the illustration of an idea that can also be communicated with words. It also assumes that I understand completely what it is that I am doing and what ‘the meaning’ of it is. But in my experience, most rationales tend to be attempts at justification that come after the fact of the work, rather than the other way around. It’s not that I don’t think about what I do. I do. My work has been on my mind to a greater or lesser degree, pretty much constantly, for as long as I can remember. Not that any of my thinking about it, outside of the making it, has really helped much, in fact it’s probably the opposite. Experience has taught me to think less and do more and also when I am not making or thinking about work, to be content with that and to focus on what it is I am supposed to be doing, eating, sleeping, walking etc.. I read a lot and often come across things that make sense to me in relation to what I do. I intend to post them here, not so much to explain what it is that I am doing, but more to give an insight into why I find it so hard to make ‘an artist’s statement’ and why I think that if people want to know more about the way an artist thinks, they might be better off asking for ‘an artists question’. To which I would probably reply - 'who am I?'.
- David Quinn 2025