PROJECT SPACE
PROCESSIONAL
JOANNE MOTT + JOHN POWER
Processional conflates two ideas: a way of making art, and a form of ritualised movement.
A series of works on paper, Processional, plays on notions of Process Art that emphasise sorting, associating, patterning and chance in a series of predefined actions. The art object is, in some ways, an effect brought about by a predetermined process that is set in train by the artist.
Precedents are found in the methods of Dada, action painting, the Process Art Movement of the 1960s and 70s, as well as Buddhist sand painting and countless shamanic traditions.
Procession invokes celebration, commemoration or demonstration, often with elements of visual spectacle, music and performance. Mott and Power bring methods of organisation to their processes, by improvising within a predetermined set of rules or criteria. In this way, the surface of the paper becomes a guided performance space; and the artefact, a record of that improvisational process.
