in conversation with Wesley Hill
Wesley Hill: Is there an underlying focus for your practice that you see re-occurring or are new series of works created quite randomly?
Tim Woodward: Maybe it is random. A catalyst for making can certainly come from anywhere. I feel as though it’s more useful for me to see everything as a potential beginning point for work, rather than formalising a process. And so I guess in as much as any artist makes choices on what is important or interesting, I try to be open to as much information as I can. Open doesn’t mean impartial of course, so yes, there are re-occurring interests.
Wesley Hill: It seems as though you have a strong literary interest (in both fiction and theory) but your work, I think, goes in a different direction. The muteness of Self titled image (2008) seems representative of your practice overall. What do you think?
Tim Woodward: When I make a work like this, one of the biggest concerns is knowing how much to say or suggest. Knowing what clues are important, what will leave the work open and what will shut it down and limit the ways it can be read. I don’t want things to be too literal or didactic and I like there to be room for a multitude of readings to occur. An image of a police car is such a demanding thing, the references and connotations can be really broad; filmic, literary, or personal experience. At the same time this work was also a one liner. There was a visual pun that a lot of people didn’t see…but I think that was one of the... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline