Doug Ashford

What we may know from abstract painting is that it deploys form in order to steal experience away from the present, showing perhaps that the experience of real things is often concealing their nature. If we could somehow disentangle ourselves from the presence of existing things, then their characters might begin to show a more secret character – proposing something more enjoined, beyond appearance or analysis – but nevertheless described as a direction for thinking. Forgiven and exposed at the same time, things could be allowed to betray their utility and become open to reformation. Historical events could become part of a perceived intersection between bodies and time. In this way art could alter the “facts of existence” and the prepared programme of life coerced into a tool to make new agents – able to affect the contingencies that modify the agreements we have with life by stopping life’s progress. As inactive, life can appear apart from any capacity to function, and therefore be spared the emptiness of utility.