In his work, Aidan Duffy continually seeks to represent the immaterial via processes of accumulation and deconstruction, which each become a (dis)organising principle and method for aggregating material into form. The artist collects and converges discarded items sourced on the street, in charity shops or at markets to reveal and incorporate what he refers to as “the psychodramas invested in objects,” or the associations an object carries with it into the world.
These new works twist and tangle across the gallery, teasing out a playful absurdity found in unexpected juxtapositions and material references. As if bursting with both joy and frustration, colourful plastic clothes hangers jostle for space; piles of wedding confetti heap up beneath a leaning dance pole; discarded cassette tape ribbons twirl into curls; and cartoon-like watch hands cluster into spiked bunches. At once recognisable and unfamiliar, these constructions offer the artist a nonhierarchical approach to organising objects. Duffy’s process advocates for humour as a useful device — even an antidote — with which to interpret the strangeness of both our physical and immaterial surroundings. In My Darling Stadium, Duffy proposes play, as much as destruction, as a seductive reprieve from the inherited chaos of our lived experience.