Happiness (Tracing the Day)
A site specific drawing by Sean Slemon
Acrylic paint
July 2012.
The text below accompanied the artwork at the exhibition:
Every day the sun shines and shifts. It’s duration and strength change, the angles shifting with the seasons.
Holding onto the light: An impossible action of course. The initial intention was to bring the city inside the space. Bringing a resource into the space in order to quantify an intangible but essential resource.
The room only receives about three and a half hours of light a day during the winter: a very short time considering the average daylight hours span from 6:30 am to about 5:30 pm during wintertime. This converts the sun into a resource: something sought after and stood in to warm up! It changes the temperature of the space and lifts the mood and colour
The drawing measures the time the light spends in the space.
It measures the time the sun shines and lights the space. This drawing is a new version of previous works in which the sunlight has been mapped or traced on different ways- sometimes using materials like string, line or hazard tape. These materials all served to carve out the space the sun would occupy were it solid – and in this case given the use of the space and it’s need for flexibility it became more effective as a simple line drawing, painted in a colour that emulated the sun.
The first time I drew the sunlight on the floor it became apparent that the drawing had to remain a line drawing and not a solid block as I had originally thought I would paint the piece. The following day the cleaning lady, Happiness came to work and subsequently worked very hard to remove the carefully drawn lines from the floor and walls.
The following day I received a call from Gabi: “Sean – I have some terrible news. The drawing was cleaned off the floor by our cleaning lady, Happiness”
We drew it again a few days later, with better results and tighter lines. Thanks to her help, and an opportunity of a second attempt at the drawing the work benefited.
My thanks for assistance with this work go to Cristina Teodora Stefan, Rudi Benade, and Gabi Ncobo, and of course Happiness.
Happiness (Tracing the Day)
A site specific drawing by Sean Slemon
Acrylic paint
July 2012.
Happiness (Tracing the Day)
A site specific drawing by Sean Slemon
Acrylic paint
July 2012.
Happiness (Tracing the Day)
A site specific drawing by Sean Slemon
Acrylic paint
July 2012.
Happiness (Tracing the Day)
A site specific drawing by Sean Slemon
Acrylic paint
July 2012.
Happiness (Tracing the Day)
A site specific drawing by Sean Slemon
Acrylic paint
July 2012.