Coming Soon Studio 2
Alex Duncan
Printmaker in FocusSEAWALL
Alex Duncan grew up in Swansea where the sea and surrounding coastal landscape played an important influence on his work. The large aluminium panels which make up SEAWALL show a detailed scan of the seawall in Swansea, with the thinness of the material causing the curve which echoes the ‘recurve’ of the original concrete wall. The effects of global warming and rising sea levels have influenced Duncan’s thinking and he notes that while concrete walls are often constructed as a defence, they can also have negative effects on the biodynamics of the ocean spaces by not allowing wave energy to exhale.
The High Water Mark series of drawings are memorials to extraordinary tides and floods from around the world. Drawn to echo the surface of a rubbing, these quiet monuments all have the universal mark of a horizontal line which delineates air above and water below, perhaps highlighting a vulnerable relationship with nature.
The pebbles in the large Backwash drawing are not drawn from a beach, but from Alex Duncan’s father’s shower curtain. This continues a fascination in questioning what is real and what is made to appear real which he has investigated in many works, including the pebbles of Cove which are in fact sea-worn pieces of polyurethane foam gathered from beaches, and the carved bone of ‘slipper limpet’.
Alex Duncan studied at Swansea College of Art and the Royal College of Art and now teaches Fine Art; Studio, Site and Context at UWTSD in Swansea. For 10 years he ran Artlacuna (a not for-profit studios and project space in Battersea, London) and has exhibited in Wales, London and internationally, most recently in Môr/Sea at Pontio in Bangor.
Curated by Ann Jones
