Gold Dust Pieces
Sharon Hall, Chisenhale Gallery
The works in this show are a sub-series of a larger project which is intended to cover the history of gold and the part it has played in the establishment of our present economic systems.
The work I had produced up until this point had often made use of prime source material in the form of old engravings and popular prints and in trying to find a set of images to use for the gold series I stumbled across some colour reproductions in an old Time Life book of original watercolours made by the pioneers of the American Gold Rush in 1849. At this time I was also aware of a piece of music by the American contemporary composer, Christian Wolff, entitled Star Dust Pieces, which had also made use of vernacular source material in its construction and composition. Eventually, and partly in homage to Wolff's music, I entitled the whole series Gold Dust Pieces. Wolff's use of a grid structure to simultaneously present a complete but spatially fragmented image, together with its use of material which stood outside of mainstream high culture became one of the primary concerns of these works.
Sharon Hall
1988