Chromium Oxcide Cut Pit Painting (2009) - oil, canvas, wood, aluminum; 230 x 200 x 61.5 cm
Pit Paintings
Simon Callery
Art/archaeologists have long known of Simon Callery’s work in the field alongside archaeologists. His Trench 10 (Segsbury Castle) is one of art/archaeology’s seminal projects. Less well known is a series that Simon calls pit paintings. In these paintings, Simon explores painting as something that has physical volume. Callery reminds us that pits are a staple of archaeology, and we immediately see that the pit paintings are physical works that relate to the idea of landscape as something with a body that has been excavated. Simon makes these pit paintings in a way that, at their edges, the paintings reveal their interior spaces.
The pit paintings relate to the experience of pits, and in them Simon wanted to find a way to make the viewer move around the painting, not dissimilar to the ways that we respond to landscape and environment. Some of the pit paintings project out from the wall. The idea is that once we are in motion then all of our senses are working in equilibrium and our experience has a similar sort of experience as when we are in the landscape. As Simon puts it:
“When you walked up to one of these new paintings, you would be aware that there was an interior space, that parts were removed, and that you could see inside. The void inside was as important an element of the painting as was the front surface, while the convention was that the front surface was everything.”
[The above text emerged from Simon’s presentation at the recent Creative (un)makings: disruptions in art/archaeology conference held in early March, 2020 at the International Museum of Contemporary Sculpture in Santo Tirso, Portugal. A full version of that presentation will be included in the publication of those proceedings and will appear in late 2020. The conference was part of the larger exhibition in Santo Tirso, further details of which are available through the following link:
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Details of Simon’s Trench 10 (Segsbury Castle) are available as another of art/archaeologies Featured Projects:
Blue Horizontal Wall Pit Painting (2014) - canvas, distemper, wood; 36 x 60 x 31cm.
Chromium Oxcide Cut Pit Painting Oblique (2013) - oil, distemper, canvas, wood, aluminum, steel; 43.5 x 57 x 40cm.
Mirror Pit Painting (2010) - oil, distemper, wood; 175 x 112 x 38 cm.
Test Pit (2009) - canvas, wood, aluminum, oil, distemper; 182 x 182 x 82 cm.
Chromium Oxcide Cut Pit Painting (2009) - oil, canvas, wood, aluminum; 230 x 200 x 61.5 cm.