Hand Thought

Artist: Justin Marshall

An exhibition of hybrid analogue/digital 3D and 2D wood and paper based works principally created within my recent sabbatical. In addition to the physical work, it would also include a short film that describes the motivation, theoretical context and processes involved in the creation of the work. Within the ‘Hand Thought’ project I deploy ‘traditional’ craft materials and tools (i.e. green wood, (chain)saw, axe, adze, chisel, mallet, spoke shave, paper, paint brush and pen) alongside digital 3D scanning and computer numerically controlled (CNC) machinery and robotics to create ambiguous works with visual and surface characteristics that combine and contrast analogue and digital aesthetics. I seek to create a conversation between hand carving and CNC milling in the 3D works, and between hand painting and digital plotting in the 2D ones. And so, through strategies where the digital overlays, or augments, rather than obliterates the marks of human action, create craftworks that begin to articulate an aesthetic language that is neither quite handmade nor machine manufactured and questions the role and significance of the tools we use.