From Matisse to Glass Ice - Clay Bodvin, A Brief History of Object and Desire
by Warwick Brown

What could be seen as an abrupt change in both technique and imagery in Clay Bodvin's new work can be understood, after a little digging, as a continuum.

Room in the Museé, A Cultural Collection, 2006 50cm sq nkjet print on 460gsm Photo Rag paper

Over the past 20 years or so, Bodvin's works have been both unique and replicable. Until recently Bodvin produced delicate, decorative prints on garden themes, using a transfer pastel process. This involved incising a drawing into board, applying pastel colour and then placing a sheet of paper over the board and rubbing the back with a burnisher. This was an adaptation of medieval woodblock printing, where a carved block was inked and the ink transferred to paper by rubbing. The effect was very delicate, lines coming up white and the granulated colour almost fading away. As the same plate could be used over and over, Bodvin could incorporate elements of various plates in new works. Fragments of this technique can still be seen in his current show, incorporated into a mosaic of other imagery produced in his new style.

Double-Coded Still Life I, 2007 50cm sq Inkjet collage on self-framing, hardboard

The new work (from 2004 onward) jumps 500 years in process, into the field of computer technology, but Bodvin is still interested in decoration and reproducibility. He has released a series of 40 images which are available in editions in various sizes, from A4 to folding-screen size. Using the Mac Graphic Converter program, the artist has brought together collages of fancy objects, furnishings and wallpaper patterns, making free-floating dreamscapes, born of wanderings in museums and historical houses. In constructed interiors we find chairs, columns, jugs, vases and convex, gilt-framed mirrors, highly coloured and riotously decorative. The colour in this body of works is truly exhilarating. Everything harmonises, but shouts at you while doing so. The immediate reference is to Matisse of the period 1908 - 1913, such as Harmony in Red, 1908 and Interior with Aubergines, 1911.

Because the elements in Bodvin's compositions are assemblages of separate images, they can be re-used in various ways, just like the old pastel boards. The interiors depicted are distorted and the objects dislocated, as in a Cubist composition. Most works have a subtle pixilation, so that the granular, soft-edged effect of Bodvin's earlier pastels is retained. Bodvin does not go all the way to a plastic realism, as one so often sees in computer animations - the feel of a painting is preserved.

Still Life, Glass IV, 2007 90cm sq Inkjet on self-framing canvas

The exception to this is in a sub-group of the prints in greys, whites and blacks, where a much colder climate is evoked than that of Matisse's sunny Collioure in summer. In these darker works, Bodvin has drawn on a collection of cut glass bowls to scan images that look like ice crystals. These float in sharp focus in front of dark backgrounds or wintry scenery, like incrustations on a window-pane. The joy in these images is that the icy forms subtly reflect the pinks, oranges, blues and greens found in the more raucous pieces. What at first glance appears rather drab, suddenly sparkles with jewels of colour.

One could be forgiven for assuming that Bodvin was not out to change the world with these new works, and he isn't. However, a perusal of his artist's statement reveals that he feels himself to be an instrument of history. He notes past historical episodes (early 1600s, mid-1800s) when religion's grip on the people eased at the same time that lavish abundance emerged, catering to new elites. We are in such a period again, but this time around one does not have to be a tulip millionaire or nouveau-riche mill-owner to indulge oneself in Bodvin's luxe, calme et volupte. Each piece works fine in the economical 17cm square version; at that scale they are like secular icons. Every home should have one.

A Brief History of Object and Desire - Clay Bodvin at Artful Gallery
1 Morgan St, Newmarket, Auckland until 11 August 2007

...Exhibition extended to August 18...
PLUS - selected pieces from this show, combined with other new work by Bodvin, are to be included in an 'End of Winter' Group Show & Art Sale which follows on from August 18.