Retrospective - Portrait of the Artist

Portrait of the Artist is an ongoing (but not unlimited) body of work. Itʼs a humorous poke at the vanity of artists, but it is also a genuine series of self-portraits. This body of work contains some unfinished works that I want to complete as part of the retrospective. This is a working document and will be updated.

This is another kind of art that I think that I donʼt do, so-called self-reflexive art, or art-about-making-art. Strictly speaking, I donʼt approve of this kind of thing because I want to make work for a general audience, not just for other artists. Recently, an arts professional expressed surprise that I consider the audience when making my work. He didnʼt actually say “How quaint!” but it felt a bit like that. Iʼve seen a lot of art that is either about the artist, or the art world, or about something that only other artists are interested in, and itʼs mostly very boring.

Having caught myself on camera so much in the last 12 years, I have become inured to my own aesthetic disappointments, and I accept the fact that I am present in a lot of my work, if only accidentally, rather like an unscripted Hitchcock cameo.

I try to convince myself that I donʼt really do that self-obsessed work where I am the only subject. Much of my early work was highly abstract or entirely non-representational and this was based in a past of paralyzing shyness, and influenced directly by the no-information packaging, and resulting enigma that was New Order before “World in Motion”. Shy no longer, I even took my shirt off once, and I donʼt do that kind of work either.

Having said all that, I love seeing behind-the-scenes and how things are done, and I have shot a number of time-lapse videos of other artists at work. Whatʼs more, this is about me. Me, me, me.

Portrait of the Artist as a Single Man (2010)Standard definition digital video with music5ʼ18” - 720 x 576 pixelshttps://vimeo.com/8970886

The video is made from a 2006 test shoot when I was first experimenting with time-lapse capture. I had noticed the reflections and colour changes in the room throughout the day so I left a few reflective objects around, started the camera and went to work.

I went out straight after work and came home late at night, then did what I often did at that time of my life. I came home alone, had a late dinner and fell asleep in front to the TV. I used to do this quite regularly and it probably explains why I know so much about popular culture when I donʼt actually watch TV all that much. Iʼve been sleep-learning for years.A single man can leave the front room littered with shiny things and roll in at any time. It was early days for me capturing time-lapse and the quality is not as good as I would have liked, but it was really just a test.

Portrait of the Artist as a Student (2007)Digital photographOriginal dimensions 3888 x 2588 pixels

This is a shot of my flat during my study on the MA in Contemporary Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University. I was preparing for a discursive session that I led on the subject of "No Studio / No Gallery". This is my living and working space. It is my studio and my gallery. The photograph is completely genuine and was not staged.

Portrait of the Artist as a Flickr Search (2009)Composite digital imageOriginal dimensions unknown

This is my entry to the "20x20 2009" exhibition at Access Space, Sheffield, UK. It is a photo-mosaic, created with MacOSaiX, using a strict keyword search on "Richard Bolam".homepage.mac.com/knarf/MacOSaiX/www.access-space.org/It had to be 20 images by 20 images of course, but thatʼs about a bare minimum for the technique to work. I am quite recognisable in it, but you have to view it from a distance. The vast majority of the images are my own, with some photos reproduced with the kind permission of Pixelwitch and Dan Sumption.www.flickr.com/photos/pixelwitchpictures/www.flickr.com/photos/gulch/

There are a number of other planned works that are incomplete. Iʼll add them as and when theyʼre done.

Richard Bolam, September 2012http://richardbolamat50.wordpress.com