MARK DIXON : MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE

13 March – 25 April 2004
The Room Upstairs, Christchurch Mansion

Making the Invisible Visible presented a selection of projects by Mark Dixon from the previous ten years.

Mark Dixon is an artist who sculpts, paints, draws, prints, makes films and installations.
A large part of his work is experimental. From 2001 he was using an electrostatic field as
a tool or element in his work.

Static electricity is invisible but when forces are combined with different materials the visual and audible results can be exquisitely beautiful and shockingly violent. To most people though, this powerful force remains strange, hidden and unexplored. There are striking visual similarities between these events on a microscopic level and those produced in an electrical storm and even those produced on a cosmic scale.

As part of this project Mark collaborated with Wolfson Electronics, a department of Southampton University, to explore the effects produced by applying varying electrostatic forces to a range of different materials. He developed new ways to demonstrate and record these ephemeral events by producing moving images and sounds that demonstrate the effects to both the scientific community and to build up a body of work - making the invisible visible.

The images in this exhibition were created in a matter of seconds and are comprised of thousands of visible marks. To create the work in this exhibition, Mark Dixon applied a charge to the wall of the gallery, using a field of high voltage static electricity generated by
a Van de Graff generator.

In the two years leading up to this exhibition, Mark Dixon produced 1500 of these images on paper in his studio. The images are made by holding a small ink coated wire close to charged paper. The ink is then attracted into the field and discharges onto the paper. In a split second the ink flow returns to the wire that he is holding and a charge is re-established on the paper.
At a critical moment an oscillation occurs causing this action to repeat itself at high speed.

Sometimes, seemingly thousands of droplets of ink reach the paper each second during this event. This has an effect rather like spraying ink. Sometimes the ink behaves erratically and forms a long string suspended in the air before it discharges. This kind of event is just like a lighting strike, but in slow motion.

After some practice Mark can control the ink discharge by using his body as part of this process. He developed a way to make close up studies of this process, using a digital video camera looking through a microscope lens. Instead of using paper for this exhibition Mark followed the same method of working only this time directing the ink on the walls.