In this, the seventh of the ArtSelector 'Selected' series, Launch selects the work of artist Mark Houghton and talks to him about how he creates his work and what his greatest influences have been.

Tell us a bit about your artwork, and what you are currently working on.

I like to think of my practice as reductive, conceptual and dependent on an acute sensitivity, or awareness to architecture. Essentially my work is an attempt to understand the world I find myself contained within. What are all these spaces? What is all this stuff? What does it all mean? Who made it all and why? And if I intervene as an artist and starting modifying how we might respond to all these factors, what happens then to stuff like meaning, context, narrative etc. I’m not the first and won’t be the last to think along these lines, but this is what I arrived at, who I am artistically.

What is your artistic background?

I trained at Middlesex University, which was then a Polytechnic. The model of education there was influenced by the Hornsey Revolt, which basically lead to the art school model we have to day, which is based on less formal structure, and finding your own individual artistic path through process and experimentation. Hard at the time, but stood me in good stead for the future. I completed my MA at Cardiff, and this experience marked a huge turning point and shift in my practice, and the ideas and theories that began to inform it. Looking back, it was good to have quite a long break between the two educational experiences, gave me more time to amass experience to utilize within the work. I started off as a painter, but always made work with very 3 dimensional surfaces. I became disillusioned with the fact that 2D work essentially deals with surface and illusion, so I gravitated more towards the physical reality of sculpture, with the help of my then tutor, Martin Naylor. Since then I have tried just about every way there is to make sculpture, but constants emerge, like the use of ready mades and found objects. You have to realize who you are, what makes you tick etc before you can make relevant work. I’ve always tried to be true to myself, and almost had to try every single alternative to get back to my initial starting point, which coincided with my MA – a 14 year journey!

What is your working process, how do you get from idea to finished artwork.

As previously mentioned, I often start with a chance find of some description, whether that’s an image, object, snippet of conversation, or even a song title. I use a lot of spontaneity initially, so explaining why I made the first moves can often sound quite crazy on one level. I believe strongly in instinct and intuition when developing and making work. Like the history of my practice, I will arrange items in different groupings, trying different alternatives, in order to tease out new potential narratives or interpretations for things, places. I do like to make the work respond to site, and have recently made many pieces entirely from objects and materials taken from the space where the work will be shown. Essentially it’s about reduction. How much can I get rid of and still retain an interest in my initial idea?. How much is superfluous?. I then try to relate it art historically to a wider context

I don’t really draw ideas out at such, just feel my way through in the studio, or gallery. I agree with Henry Moore – if I draw something carefully , I lose the urge to make it. I include chance and process, and try to use the left overs of making within the work

Who or what has been the biggest influence on you?

I suppose artists who impose incredible limitations on their practices, and still manage to produce a vast array of compelling, powerful and lyrical work. I’m thinking of artists’ like Mondrian, Dan Flavin. I love the reductive qualities of minimalism, so Judd of course. I love the naive quality in Giotto, the raw spontaneity and direct links to the past in people like Baselitz. More recently, I think one of the most eloquent visual poets working today is Pedro Cabrita Reis. I love the way his work responds to site, and doesn’t really seem to be about much on one level, but then relates so powerfully and universally on others, and again through very economical means. Basically I have been looking at art for a long time, so this list could be pretty endless…

What’s next for you?

The usual business of being an artist. Exploring possibilities regarding residencies, as well as exhibition opportunities. As well as making works in situ, in response to sites, I also want to get back to the studio, and make some stuff, using expensive materials like neon and bronze. I quite like the idea of the next show looking like it was made by several people, in that the works would appear to have tenuous or sporadic links to each other. I’m also looking to start a practice based Phd in the near future. I’m hoping this will give the work new focus, it’s all about moving forward, trying new ideas, the world is constantly changing and so should we as artists in order to log and reflect that change.

View Mark Houghton's art profile page


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