Collection of Action Men figures in new exhibition

Artist Ivan Smith has created a sculptural installation using  a collection of action men figures in a new exhibition at Derby Museum & Art Gallery, entitled Con-flict: a state of disharmony.

Using sculpture, installation, photography and drawn line, the exhibition explores the residue of despair and hopelessness caused by conflict. 

Obsessionistas asked Ivan about his use of collected objects and multiples in his sculptural installations:

"I have always been interested in ‘dead objects’, things that have been discarded when their function or use has finished and they become superfluous to our disposable culture where consuming is far more important than recycling, waste, ecology.

This of course happens on a massive scale and the impact of this situation can be highlighted when you develop a work using obsolete objects, which mirror the magnitude of mass waste?

Added to this is my natural instinct to collect, its something that is intuitive possibly even inherent within my nature, as I now see one of my daughters doing exactly the same thing that I did when I was young. This collecting is centered around the multiple, the interest is in the acquisition of as many versions of the interesting object as possible, applying this to my work is a very natural development.

The action men work has developed around both of these two aspects to my interest in the multiple.

Initially of course they occupy a nostalgic position within the work, as I understand this because of my joy as a child with the doll, re-enacting war games fed to us by Hollywood and their blockbuster war movies of the time. Playing with subverting that nostalgic position is what interests me as it draws you into a dialogue, which unexpectedly twists and turns back on you.

I wanted to explore and have a dialogue about modern conflict and the action man seemed to be an interesting starting point for this as I had already many of the dolls in the studio. Collecting more of them became a dynamic part of the process, hunting through car boot sales, newspapers, lofts and charity shops having discussions with the people supplying me with the dolls and their stories informed the continuing use of the dolls.

As a child I once went on holiday with the family and my new action man was my constant playmate during that time, until one day while playing with it on the beach I buried it in the sand. When I came to find it again, I was unable to re-locate it and spent the rest of my holiday both looking for it and mourning its loss, this story has stayed with me it seems into adulthood!"

Con-flict: a state of disharmony by Ivan Smith

Derby Museum & Art Gallery, Derby, UK

April 30^th – 10^th July 2011.

www.ivansmith.info

Image courtesy of Ivan Smith