The work of Stephen Little
The work of Stephen Little displays the austerity of an analytical project. The subject of his investigation is the relationship between object, presentation and value. Over the past few years, his practice has extended from being a highly reductive analysis of painting as object (in which, for example, in the early 1990s the traditional 'zero degree ' of the monochrome painting was reduced further to a polyester-cotton cloth surface and then to a colourless transparent plastic stretched over plain pine frames) to being an elaboration of circumstantial supports, in which the armature frame and cross-bars, gallery walls and floor are principal elements of a work. Recent installations have notably involved colour within the formal/conceptual scheme. Though exemplifying itself as a matter of factual analysis, the emphasis of Little's project has been increasingly to do with questions of value.
When considering an issue or object we should aim to be aware of all relevant factors before making an evaluative judgement. The highly variable nature of our capacity to take into account facts, sensations, and subtexts, to actually see things as they are, in the process of looking at art was addressed in Little's Five Works for Five Venues (1993), a series of small free-standing objects placed concurrently in non-exhibition areas of five different galleries in Sydney. This modestly interventional work questioned the extent to which objects are really seen in any direct sense, and highlighted how various circumstantial factors may affect our perceptions. It was an early indicator that Little's is not so much a formalistic enterprise as an exploration into the mechanism and melodrama of awareness.
Objectivity, however, is unfashionable these days; a preoccupation with formal logic and facticity thus... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline