Roger Woods
Objets d'Art is a visual discourse on the state of painting under attack from photography and post modern theory
In the early 70s when he left the Royal College, the future of painting was under attack from photography and post modern linguistic theory. How could one take on the great modernists: Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, in such a climate?
Objet's D'Art is about representation and articulates the problems which preoccupied Roger. Painting is symbolised by the solids to which all forms can be reduced, (the modelling indicates the transference of objects from 3D to 2D) and by the delicate carousel of watercolours. The whole history of art is referenced by the pyramid,(also used by Duchamp) then the classical columns of C18th and C19th and the split planes of cubism.
The columns, in puce and baby blue, fashion colours, are, I think, a delicate reference to the use of classical architecture in landscape, for example by Gainsborough, to enhance the social status of his sitters. It's architectural haute couture. Their marble substance, separated onto another plane, is like faux marbling popular in interior decoration..
The clock dominates the whole as does the waterwheel, an image used by Duchamp in 'The Bride stripped Bare by the Bachelors' to represent desire, while the shadowy columns are male and female symbols. Its size suggests that it stands for the motivating force not just of sexual desire, but of the totality of men's relationships with women.(When Roger's mother died he said “there's no-one to paint for any more”).
In mythological terms, the waterwheel symbolises the wheel of fortune, turned by the female element,water, and affects the tides and fates. In psychological terms it is a symbol of uniting polarised areas: active and passive, male and female, scotophiliac and exhibitionist.
It's size here is relation to the other devices also signifies the huge importance for Roger of Duchamp in the history of art . The head with its electrodes represents the mapping of the unconscious by psychoanalysis, especially Freud. (There is a biographical note here referring to his father's ECT). An industrial/televisual device is fixed to the face with its mirror mask ambiguously protecting and eroding the features of the head; it points to the debate about how industry, commerce, advertising have intruded upon the consciousness of the individual and manipulate the way we perceive the world. ( Roger's notes are helpful here:” Machines, as extensions of man('amputations of Mcluhan') exert behavioural influence/role definition. Men united with machines 'customize' each other, giving reciprocal attributes, though at the price of anonymity. Speed, power and aggressive combustion are granted to the motorcycle rider, who in turn contributes human (erotic) qualities to his machine.” )