Truthplotter
Durational wall drawing installation with graphite, coloured pencil and automated mechanisms, produced as part of the exhibition 'Some Possible Truths'
Dimensions variable
Customs House Gallery
South Shields, UK
2015
Some Possible Truths presents two bodies of work by Kennedy, which reflect his interest in the nature of aesthetic value and his ongoing fascination with the notions of chance, order, control and failure. Kennedy's drawing-focused practice follows a path of experimentation that spans installation, sculpture, works on paper and performance. Realised through a range of approaches, his 'experiments' often deliberately parody scientific process to examine the relationship between intuition and logic. He seeks order in a chaotic world, recasting chance and unpredictability as his tools.
Throughout the course of the exhibition Kennedy will orchestrate a number of wall-mounted, mechanised devices to produce Truthplotter, a new large-scale drawing installation that tests the limits of control and gesture. A truth is something considered real - a factual concept. A correctly balanced and aligned object is described as 'True'. The installation seeks to explore the margins of truth and errancy - trying and failing, repeating and adjusting, this experimental process of mark making will produce dynamic coloured forms, which recall the characteristics of large groups of animals, which flock or swarm together. Like shoals of fish or murmurations of starlings, these compositions describe an inherent balance and motion, offering a new visual language shaped by the limitations of site, material and time.