Duncan Cameron

Artist

​

Sculptor, Illustrator & Theatre Prop Maker

The John Ruskin Prize: 'Agent of Change'

Shortlist 2019

https://www.ruskinprize.co.uk/prize-finalists-2019?mc_cid=856c74e9f1&mc_eid=65393e8af1

Catologue

https://www.bigdrawshop.co.uk/products/the-john-ruskin-prize-2019-exhibition-catalogue

​

'By knowingly employing aesthetic devices and historical methods I assemble small moments of material theatre and aim to provide a lens through which I question the validity of the professed need to understand through categorisation and suggest that we arrange, archive and collect to give us a sense of control and purpose. I propose that its not about the subject matter per se, it’s about the need to exert order using cross-disciplinary models and pattern making structures to provide a reassuring armature, a safety cage, in which we feel secure.

I advocate for comparisons and juxtapositions between the reassurance that collecting and order gives us, with regard for example to our perceived dominion over nature and our actual failure in this conceit, and the vulnerability of this position. The analogue nostalgia knowingly employed in my work aims to cut through the digital conversation and suggests perhaps that in the face of inevitable entropy and decay our position is no more secure now as we reach towards an insecure digital impermanency.'