Richard Dawson – An Exhibition of Collages
(as part of the Creative Quarter Block Party) + Richard Dawson DJ set
“I hope you may enjoy looking at a reasonably – but not totally – comprehensive collection of (all) the collages I have made (so far), which will be hung, and in certain cases balanced, upon the walls of the very fine NewBridge bookshop in a vaguely chronological order (going from left to right, almost certainly), the general idea (thinking behind) being to provide some insight into how (if) my practice has (or has not) – or will – developed/develop over the (next) five (or so) years I’ve been/I will be making collage-work (“working hard hardly working”), most of the pieces (no fishing here) being either a) naive to the point of redundancy, b) generally good but problematic in places, c) a dog’s dinner, d) pretty bad but not without merit, e) fine from a distance, f) a nice compliment to my far more successful musical work, with only the most recently-completed two (or three) collages being what I would term ‘worthy of your attention’ (a temporary state of affairs, maybe) – but then, isn’t that always the way (?) (the road behind is darkening), one must frequently ask oneself (like they say in Hollywood, “you are only as good as your last picture, kid!”) is it good enough (?), can it ever be good enough (?), and where on earth did I (the royal we) go wrong (?), but for heaven’s sake don’t make yourself sick (tread gently), by all means you must be firm (gentle – but firm!) and (crucially) keep in mind that, whomsoever you may find yourself to be in a particular given lifetime, any drop of success you manage to wring from that brow of yours shall be immediately swallowed – swallowed by unstoppable and ever-widening rings of concentric failure… and I’d also like to mention that, provided we can find some decks, I’ll be dj-ing throughout the (opening) evening.” 2015
