Lucinda Burgess: On Repetition

‘On Repetition’ incorporates works in steel, charred wood and glass as well as more sculptural works using Indian Khadi paper.

Lucinda’s primary focus in ‘On Repetition’ is materiality. She is particularly drawn to its natural, often delicate and always changeable character. Each material is chosen for the degree to which it can transform. It may be highly reflective such as glass or graphite, or capable of undergoing radical visual transformation – for example, polished steel to rust.

Another key aspect of Lucinda’s vocabulary is her enactment of Søren Kierkegaard’s observation that “There is no such thing as repetition.” By repeatedly subjecting matter to the same process – or by repeatedly placing the ‘same’ object in different contexts – she reveals that it is all too apparent that nothing can be repeated; that every attempt to do so arrives at an outcome that is totally unique.

In Same, for example, two sets of steel angles, identical in size and material, are placed in different contexts: one on the wall, the other on the floor. Despite their close proximity, the difference in location totally alters the viewer’s perception. The one on the wall looks like modernist art, the one on the floor more like a cattle grid or a foot grille.

Drawing on her deep interest in oriental philosophy, Lucinda’s work emphasises the fact that the visual field is in constant movement and stresses the very experience of looking. She accentuates the importance of first-hand experience, as opposed to our current culture’s emphasis on mediated experience. As the viewer walks around one of her pieces, the colours may dance about in a sea of reflections or the shapes may transmute as the eyes move. The key message of her work is that, experientially, there is no stasis; that, ultimately, the idea of a ‘thing’ that lasts is just that: an idea, a useful and necessary tool for navigating the constant flux of sensory data.