We recently talked to John about his work.
MNG: You originally wanted to call the exhibition "Head in the Sand" or something similar. Can you talk about the ideas that started this series off?
JR: It was keep your head down, I was also the one that came up with Duck! It is pretty much self-explanatory I feel, when you look at what is going on at the moment.
MNG: Lots of people have commented on the patterns in this new series of work. They seem like the patterns and colour of New Mexico. Were you looking at these?
JR: I haven’t heard that one before. They are more like an abstracted camouflage pattern breaking up the lines of the pared back forms. They have more in common with street maps or circuit boards.
MNG: Your works are always perforated in some way. Anything you want to say about that? I know sometimes it suggests architecture...
JR: The holes and cuts are like drawing with dark and light, in that a hole is the blackest black, and when viewed from another angle light come through. I also like the contradiction it creates as the forms look solid and heavy. Sometimes they are about architecture.
MNG: I'm also intrigued by the way you use the brick patterns. In this series it seems to cement the idea of head in the sand, ie. the figures are stuck. What would you say about that?
JR: It is all about the traditional associations of the terracotta clay in this country.
MNG: And then there is the large impressive work with it's head stuck up the arse of someone else. What's going on there...?
JR: I felt the need to make a large piece as I can make larger works. I felt that people in Wellington had only seen smaller pieces and assumed that that was all I did.
MNG: Your work seems to also be about an aesthetic of awkwardness. Would you agree?
JR: No I see it more as more of a transformation, turning something into something else. I also like being ambiguous. A object is more interesting if it is about more than one thing.
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