Tom Badley at Best in Show

Slade School Graduate Exhibited at John Jones Project Space, London

Oct 19, 2008

"Best in Show", curated by Gavin Ramsey and Naomi Pearce, draws upon the UK's graduate talent of 2008. One of this year's outstanding new artists is Tom Badley.

As a student of Phyllida Barlow, and graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, Tom Badley hopes to emulate its most famous alumni such as Anthony Gormley, Rachel Whiteread and Kate Greenaway. Badley is off to a good start. His piece entitled One featured in Best in Show at the John Jones Project Space, London. The show, which has been curated by Pearce & Ramsey, who are committed to supporting and promoting emerging artists, will run until 31st October 2008.

Badley: Yes, in primary school I was sat down with a teacher, one to one, to do drawing exercises. When I should have been doing something boring like everyone else, I was making art.

Badley: I owe a lot of what I make to people like Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Steve Reich, Nam June Paik, Paul Pfeiffer, Keith Tyson, Candice Breitz, Christian Marclay, Ligeti, the structural films of Bill Viola, Michael Snow and Stan Brakhage. I like contemporary drawing from America and I draw upon music history from the last five hundred years and advances in science and technology.

Badley: The main part of my work uses video. I've been working with an editing technique that allows me to make music from any video – just by cutting and pasting it, no effects or other manipulation needed. These videos are mostly downloaded and freely available, sometimes already well-known.

I've made simple compositions, four-part harmonies, as well as recreating music, like a Bach Fugue. I like taking material from the web and turning it into something physical and unique.

Suite 101: Best in Show features your piece entitled One but you've also created Egg Eversion. Can you tell me about them?

Badley: One is a sculpture of a thin grand piano with one key. If you depress the key the word 'one' will sound.

Egg Eversion is a project based on the mathematical transformation of turning a shape inside out without breaking its surface. It takes many forms, including texts, and thirty-seven individually sculpted models of the transformation in process. I discovered the mathematical process - called 'Eversion' - by chance, and use the transformation of an egg turning inside out as a kind of insignia. It sums up how I use the material I find, and how I like to apply mathematics, transformation and science to art.

Seamless Breakage

Badley: It combines critical and philosophical writing, narrative, illustrations, biography and dogmatic writing to explore a vast spectrum of themes, influences and stories. The book will provide new and interesting connections between ideas, and hopefully offer an insight into the kind of psyche my work comes from. It's also an aesthetic object in itself.

Suite 101: Turning now to your music – can you tell me about Organ Works?

Badley: I compose keyboard based music, as well as music for string ensembles and small orchestral works, ambient sound and other genres. Organ Works is a collection of compositions for church organ. I see this as parallel to making works of art. I like to keep my knowledge of harmony and music history razor sharp. This gives me a sixth sense when working with video, and makes the process quicker and more intuitive.

The copyright of the article Tom Badley at Best in Show in Mixed Media Arts is owned by Frances Spiegel. Permission to republish Tom Badley at Best in Show in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.