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In modern society identity is everything. Or is it? Through popular culture and social media, such as Facebook, our true identities have become a thing of the past. With the exponential growth in society’s obsession with technology our identities can be constructed and manipulated with the click of a mouse. The struggle between our traditional and contemporary values and our appearance are parallel. Through image we contort our identity projecting a false interpretation of ourselves.
Drawing upon aspects of popular culture, self-identity and the Australian image, Scott Redford extends the boundaries of contemporary art by introducing his larger than life surf character, Reinhardt Dammn, to his audience. By creating this fictional character, Redford exposes to his audience the importance of the construction of identity through Dammn’s creative output.
A twenty-two year old who surfs, makes art, and sings in a band. Reinhardt is cocky and always the showman, but his bravado masks vulnerability. Daring to speak with the innocence of a wild child, Reinhardt challenges the complacency of art’s powers-that-be.1
(Leonard, 2010)
Redford has become a driving force in contemporary Australian art, and is renowned for the complex ways in which his work engages with contemporary questions of popular culture and identity politics, with a specific focus on the Gold Coast’s unique beach culture. The examination of his own upbringing and surfing culture is a significant aspect of Redford’s practice. Through his work, Redford has critiqued the construction of identity and our society’s obsession with conformity and labels.
By playing with his fictional artist like a doll, vitalising him with his own dramas, Scott Redford plays out issues he has with the art world at arm’s length... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline