Artist’s statement -
The title of this exhibition The Start Of The Day But The End Of The World and my previous show, Life Sentence are both dealing with my life in New Zealand. The sculptures are ‘language images’ reflecting visually the language spoken from conversations with people and from absorbing influences from books, film and music. It is people which is my main interest in life - and the language is the communication skill used in social interaction.
Interacting in this social atmosphere of New Zealand, I've responded to comments I've heard or read. I work through providing images to support statements in a lateral sense. As previously expressed in the City Art Gallery newsletter, the lateral translations are not to be revealed by the artist but intended to be re-interpreted by the spectator. This is where the pieces are coloured, and where the spectator can participate.
On completion of a piece, it is up to the viewer, to take the context and content I've supplied and satisfy themselves. The concepts are foremost and the visual, secondary - but also vitally important to complete the encounter. I do not feel the need to reveal definitions, as this would disclose too much of me, hence omitting viewer participation.
Presently, my pieces are undergoing a development series. My existence each day confronts itself with changes in environment, philosophies, intellectual experiences, etc. These changes evoke changes in my work - I don’t feel my life is stagnant therefore neither is my work.
This exhibition The Start Of the Day But The End Of The World reveals the sun rising in New Zealand on a new day. This new day is a new day for the world. The End Of The World describes New Zealanders being geographically isolated from the rest of the world. There are things New Zealanders experience behind the rest of the world, yet we experience the start of the day first. I do not imply this presents or solves problems. I attempt to express that ‘beginning’ in my pieces - not the beginning of a NEW day but a NEW way of viewing the image.
Ephemera
→ Daniel Clasby: The Start of the Day But the End Of the World, 1987, exhibition card