The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...
As curators Jan Duffy and Alex Taylor write in the catalogue for their show My Doubtful Mind, ‘art and anxiety make a happy couple’. It can be argued that art springs from anxiety; that artists often draw upon dark recesses to create their work. Duffy and Taylor wanted the artists contributing to this exhibition to share their phobias with the audience, to make visitors as uncomfortable as possible.
The panel discussion accompanying the show featured an anthropologist/writer (Chris Eipper), a hypnotist (Daryl Wilkinson), a doctor/writer (Leah Kaminsky) and two of the artists. Daryl Wilkinson was very eloquent about the ways in which art speaks to the unconscious and how it can help to overcome phobias. The artists Dominic Redfern and David Rozetsky, were remarkably open about the role of their phobias in their art-making. With two medical practitioners taking part in the discussion, it was akin to a therapeutic exercise, involving private admissions and the dispensation of expert advice.
Artists sometimes make art from the things that terrify them in an effort to assuage their phobias. In his multimedia work Not That, Not Now, Dominic Redfern explores his extreme fear of bananas which stems from a TV commercial from his youth. As his case demonstrates, phobias can usually be traced back to a particular triggering event. Redfern is particularly interested in the role of screen-based media and its effects on our self-identity. Television in particular has a powerfully hypnotic effect, as his personal narrative attests.
During the panel discussion, David Rozetsky admitted that he suffers from a social phobia from time to time. Therefore, it is not surprising that he often explores group dynamics in his art. His sound