This body of work began with a short story I wrote about my childhood in Johannesburg in the 70s and 80s and the insatiable interest I had in surfing and skateboarding. I use this as a kind of template through which to view my work, which is characterised by pattern, process and the use of unconventional materials, often resulting in an interpretation which emphasizes its abstract concerns over any others. This device reveals my abiding interest in repetitive form, design, colour and material to be firmly rooted in memory and sensory experiences that I evoke in the abovementioned story.
The series of sculptures, two-dimensional pieces and a video work explore waveforms, symmetry and process in a variety of media across a range of scales.
Pics by Mario Todeschini, courtesy of Stevenson Gallery
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Foam, 2009, skateboard wheels, cable ties, 24 x 50 x 4cm
This simple parallelogram of old skateboard wheels and cable times is suggestive of foam but ultimately celebrates the unusual colours and properties of the polyurethane objects which were revolutionary to the development of the sport in the 70s. I got them from future SA skateboarding Olympian and childhood acquaintance Dallas Oberholzer.
Sleeve and (detail), 2008, wetsuit fabric, 210 x 310 x 310cm
Sleeve is made from re-used wetsuit fabric which I acquired from an organisation which collected them for distribution to underprivileged kids in a community surf programme. Most of these were too large or unusable and I replaced these with good secondhand suits in appropriate sizes. The hyperbolic paraboloid, under which viewers walked on entry to the exhibition, is a very economical way of making a strong, light surface. The wetsuit represented to me something which allowed immersion but promised insulation, embodying a similar kind of ambiguity that my relationship with surfing did as a kid growing up 600km from the ocean!
Roll, 2008, polyurethane, 26 x 45 x 3cm
The elements of this work were 3D-printed from a digital file, then moulded and cast in polyurethane. This is a close relative of Foam above, but riffing on flat spots that develop on skateboard wheels through use. 3D-printing was not yet ubiquitous, and I used a product development company for help with this, which was probably my first use of 3D CAD processes.
This series of works was produced in the same way I made Sieve in 2005. Layers of Tyvek in cyan, magenta, yellow and white were layered and holes were carefully incised in successive layers allowing precisely determined quantities of each colour to be visible. In this way I was able to create the illusion of simple forms corresponding to ideal slopes and transitions, something at the heart of any surfer’s or skateboarder’s search for the perfect ride.
Pool (detail) 2008
Silkscreen on hand-cut Tyvek
59.5 x 84.5 x 5cm
Slope 2008
Silkscreen on hand-cut Tyvek
84.5 x 59.5 x 5cm
Trough 2008
Silkscreen on hand-cut Tyvek
59.5 x 84.5 x 5cm
Period, 2007, expanded polyethylene foam, hardware. each section 140 x 140 x 90cm
These large objects are made from a series of hand-cut foam profiles laminated with hardware into rolling wave-like forms. Faced with the problem of representing something which exists in a field rather than as an isolated object, I chose to arrange a series of waves on the successive faces of a triangle. Each profile depicts a wave changing in size in a cycle of sevens, referring to the persistent myth that the a seventh wave in a set is always largest. This misperception is probably too about the surfer’s search for idealised conditions.
Pitch, 2008, acrylic, brass, 66 x 55 x 6cm
Like Period above, Pitch is named for a property of waves. Here, waveforms are perched on top of one another, moving in and out of sync as their frequencies diverge and line up. The musical analogies are obvious and the work perhaps resembles sound waves more than any other. The coloured acrylic was chosen for a small surfboard-shaped pendant my older brother had made in school when I was very young.
Ply, 2008, polypropylene, hardware, 190 x 115 x 168cm
This is my first use of a technique I would develop in the sculptural works in my next show. Die-cut polypropylene elements in the form of a skateboard deck I’d once made are spaced apart and fanned out in a shallow arrangement, creating a stroboscopic rendering of the object moving through space. This is again a study of idealised form and movement but also pays homage to an iconic image of Stacy Peralta one of the founding fathers of modern skateboarding.
Ply (detail) 2008
Weft (foreground)
Looped DVD, with original footage from Bruce Brown’s Endless Summer, produced by Brendon Bussy
Brown’s 1966 Endless Summer was shot all over the world and arguably created the template for most subsequent surf movies – a search for the perfect wave. On a suspended screen, a passage of this film shot at Cape St Francis (subsequently named ‘Bruce’s Beauties’) is projected right way round and reversed, meeting in the middle of the screen. The two slip in and out of sync, regularly lining up perfectly, briefly creating a symmetrical image.
This work was shown in its initial form, produced with artist and friend Greg Streak in 2003 for my show ‘Cloud’ and again in 2008 for my mini retrospective ‘Aggregate’ after Brendon Bussy (musician, artist and friend) re-produced it for me. This was the first time it was projected.
Paul Edmunds 