For this years’ edition of Material Art Fair, George Rippon produces new sculptural works in a series that has been made consistently for the past five years: personal and found objects placed and cast within buckets. These act as containers and props for personal experiences and relationships, somewhere between short stories and sculptures. The new works, no longer able to be considered the everyday objects that they present themselves as, act as a fictional autobiography of the artist’s travels in Mexico. The second series, a personal collection of books riveted closed thereby rendering them unreadable, are mounted to the wall. They imply a semiotic history, however share the same negation of function as the sculptures. Together they act as proxies for knowledge and history, both shared and personal. A straight forward reading is implied, however they become both subjective and objective reflections. The artist and the viewer are implicated in constructing meaning. Generosity isn’t a given.

“Staring into the gaps between people, experience, and expectations. George Rippon tries to focus on how, and to what extent, we connect to a larger sense of ourselves and one another. Searching within biography, personal relationships, cultural and social backgrounds, he seeks out potential points of conflict within the common power systems and standards that we are confronted with. The work focuses on appropriation, anxiety and awkwardness. Where does the shameless sharing of sentimentality and skepticism stand now? This ongoing collecting and osmosis of objects and ideas are cast, placed and manipulated into surfaces evolving into installations, sculptures and images. Through this process of gathering, editing and producing, there is an attempt to compose experiences in between private and public.

To compare Elena Ferrante, to William S. Burroughs is to incite violence against both as it takes away their qualities. It’s still something to look at.”