Masters Show 2015 – Susie takes `oil painting’ in a new direction
Published On Fri 21 Aug 2015 by Roddy Isles
An exploded oil well head recovered from the North Sea and weighing in at a tonne-and-a-half forms a spectacular centrepiece at this year’s University of Dundee Masters Show.
The stunning object is one of the first things visitors to the show will see, sitting close to the entrance at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. It is the work of Susie Johnston, graduate of the MFA Arts & Humanities programme.
“It is such a marvellous object and it has been great to work on it,” said Susie. “The petal effect comes from the force of the explosion when the well head was decommissioned. That prompted my thoughts of decorating it with a poison ivy pattern and the title of the piece, which is `Leaves of three… let them be’. A lot of toxic plants such as poison ivy grow with three leaves.
“The work is partly a comment on our energy use and possible alternate sources. The poison ivy, found in both the USA and UK alludes to a taking over and covering of a host support ultimately becoming something which is impossible to eradicate.
“This work addresses the vibrancy of the material of the oil pipe in and of itself and the multitude of signifiers which the politics of oil generate in the 21st century.”
Susie found the section of pipe at the Perth yard of Blast Design, a company who carry out decommissioning work for the oil industry. The section of steel piping was decommissioned in 2006 and had been sitting in the company’s yard ever since, until Susie spotted it.
“This has all come about as a result of me being a bit of a magpie in their yard and persuading them to let me have things like a 1500 kilogram section of exploded pipe!” said Susie.
The well head is a section of four concentric pipes which have been blown up. The outer section of piping is lost in the explosion but the three inner rings remain, but spectacularly damaged.
John Kettles, from Blast Design, said, “They don’t normally come up looking as striking as this one did. I kept it in my yard since we decommissioned it thinking it was such an unusual thing I might do something with it for decoration, but now Susie has done something much better with it.”
Susie’s exhibition can be seen at Masters Show 2015, which opens with a preview on Friday August 21st and runs until Saturday August 29th in Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, part of the University of Dundee.
Transformative design and visually stunning art from five of the UK’s most innovative and exciting postgraduate courses – MSC Animation & Visualisation, MFA Art & Humanities, MFA Art Society & Publics. MSC Forensic Art, MSC Medical Art – will be exhibited by over 50 students.
It follows on from the University’s record breaking Art, Design and Architecture Degree Show earlier this summer, which was viewed by 15,000 people over ten days in May.
The Masters Show celebrations will begin with a special, invite-only Preview Evening on Friday, 21st August. It will remain open until Saturday, 29th August. The exhibition is open from 10am-8pm on weekdays and from 10am-4pm at weekends.
For more information see www.dundee.ac.uk/mastersshow
Roddy Isles
Head of Press
TEL: 01382 384910
MOBILE: 07800 581902
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk