Martin Darbyshire MRSS

My practice has two strands, both of which use the idea of retrofuturism; to look forward whilst looking backward. The synthesis of ideas, materials, and forms explore the liminal space between these temporal zones. Artefacts (and their symbolic reference in popular culture) influence the shaping of the work, reflecting the direction the past gives us and how our perception bends it the desires of the present. This imagined reality questions our relationship with technology by considering the displacement and alienation that arises from its ubiquity and complexity. 

I use the hybridity of assemblage, and it's quality for making associations to explore the questions that arise from obsolescence, and commodity culture at large. My sculptures combine the manufactured aesthetic of the everyday with modelled or constructed objects. By playing chance against order, the old with the new, or combining the synthetic with the organic, I explore a future whose unfulfilled promise lingers over the present.   

The second strand is also grounded in the process of constructing, but it begins with considering the possibilities of the material or process. I use clay because its geological nature allows me to connect the micro to the macro, whilst working unpremeditated. It's material qualities assist spontaneity and working crudely, allowing for the persuasive nature of the affective drive to take hold. As a counterpoint to this, I use the precision of CAD to mirror the determinism of technology.