More Life: Towards a Vitalist Manifesto Or Bifurcation, Pseudopodia and the worm, Jane Seymour and me, even.

In a trajectory through 3 bodies of work the artist has attempted to define a lineage that discuses the act of creation. Starting with the procreative and the acknowledgement of the father/son relationship the discussion moves to the possibility of non pro-creative
creativity.
Quinn 's Da (completed in the first year of the doctorate) evolved through witnessing the demise of the artist's father. He acknowledges the line that passes to the eldest son and the putting down of the baton through choosing to be a non pro-creative unit. That this creates a void was the catalyst that led to the third body of work.
Minor Wounds came about through a study of Major wounds. The artist had survived incestuous childhood abuse and had projected himself into the AIDS epidemic in New York from 1985 to 1996. These wounds had been dealt with in earlier work and there was a need to look at the other ways we fall apart, yet sit with dignity and even humour recognising our own mortality. This work is about the body's drive to renew itself. The wounds, unintentionally inflicted, were recorded and the body stands now as evidence of
its recuperative powers..
More Life celebrates continuum. Inspired by Jarry, Shakespeare, Goya, Rabelais, Roussel, Joyce, Cervantes , Goya and Duchamp, the artist plays with creative intuition,
similitude, dreams and accidents to create a set of fictional selves that the self has bifurcated into. The creative bifurcators who have inspired him are considered and the possibility that we as a species might be evolving into bifurcatory, as opposed to sexual, reproducers, and that this would be falling in with the universal law of creativity. Pro meaning for would suggest that pro-creativity is (just) standing in for creativity.
The artist's contribution comprises 92 large pseudo paintings on canvas, 21 of which are presently touring the USA. Like the Amoeba's pseudopodia the artist sends them out to feel their way and to create a space in which it might be safe to creatively bifurcate.

This thesis supplied via ROAR to UEL-registered users is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication of any part of the material is not permitted, except for your personal use for the purposes of non-commercial research and private study in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission from the copyright-holder for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, for sale or otherwise, to anyone. No quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement.