Q&A with Graham Fink on ‘Nomads’, a Riflemaker exhibit

GLOBAL – December 19, 2013 – From January 9 to 22, Riflemaker presents filmmaker Graham Fink’s debut exhibition, Nomads.

 

Riflemaker explains that Nomads consists of twelve of the most insistent ‘pareidolia’ (an imagined stimulus, image or sound which appears to be significant), printed onto the purest white marble.

 

< src=”/global//UserFiles/cardinal 1c copy. ” width=”300″ height=”400″ hspace=”5″ align=”right” alt=”” />

Fink, chief creative officer at Ogilvy & Mather China, discussed Nomads with adobo:

 

1.What inspired you in creating the works exhibited?

  

It is something i’ve been working on for years. I keep seeing faces everywhere. In clouds, fire, the scrapings at the bottom of a porridge bowl. I began to notice them in the street as I travelled everywhere and started taking photographs of them. Pareidolia. Eventually I built up large collection of images and overtime I looked at them they inspired me.

 

2.  What message if any lies behind the exhibited works?

 

I think it’s no coincidence that ‘man’ see’s faces in things. A kind of ‘Soul’ looking back at him. So in a way we are in every one of these pictures.

 

3. How did you come to select the same quarry used for the Venus de Milo and the choice of medium?

 

The choice of white marble came after a year of printing on different surfaces. I experimented a lot with copper, but I always had a problem getting the ‘Whites’ so instead of using Persil Automatic, I tried Marble. I researched many different types as I didn’t want any veins running through it. I eventually found Thassos. It is the purest whitest marble on earth and in fact is from the same quarries as the Venus de Milo. The stone has a sparkle to it. Very beautiful.

 

4. What are the similarities or differences behind this exhibit and what you do at work?

 

I have always seen Advertising at it’s very best as a form of Art. The similarities are Creativity and self expression. I remember the late, great Paul Arden once saying to me, “Don’t put the brief on the page, Put yourself on the page.” I have always tried to do that. and with this work it is no different. I am putting myself onto that marble surface.

 

5. How did your work as an agency creative help in the creative process for this exhibition?

 

It paid for the very expensive materials. 

 

6. This is your first solo show… have you exhibited in the past in collaboration with other artists? 

 

I have never exhibited any of my art in the past. so I am very excited and a little nervous too.  

 

Graham Fink’s exhibition NOMADS is at Riflemaker: January 9 to 22, 2014. Private view is on January 8, 6 to 9 p.m.