Love and Work (2012)

Mark Titchner’s practice navigates the complex web of ideologies and belief systems that form our zeitgeist. The work is an exploration of how ideas are filtered through culture moving from the counterculture to the mainstream. He often juxtaposes conflicting sentiments revealing the influence of political, religious and scientific belief systems on our lives. He is concerned with how we receive ideas through public messaging and how the same utopian sentiments exist across different media from political propaganda to advertising.

Love and Work is one of an ongoing series of carved wooden pieces that are often made alongside fellow artists who work with digital prints. The text was inspired by sayings of the radical Austrian Psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Reich: ‘Love, work and knowledge are the wellsprings of life, they should also govern it’ and Lebanese American poet Kahlil Gibran ‘Love is work made solid’.

Titchner explains that in 2003 he began using the computer as his primary tool for drawing, viewing it as a contemporary form of cottage industry. This led him to creating carved wooden works which he compared to a “devotional process”. The work was carved in wood, burnt and then aluminium leaf applied to the surface. The works are digitally designed and then executed by hand making visible the labour involved in the process. It is in line with the text of the work which emphasises the relationship between labour and devotion. The central design element is based on the figure of the Lotus flower often found in Buddhist art. This is combined with floral elements commonly found in the Arts and Crafts movement and a text rendered in the Futura font.

Titchner has worked on a number of projects in Birmingham. The themes of Titchner’s work and his Arts and Craft movement inspired aesthetic, have repeatedly come to the fore as an area of interest at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

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